


Swordmistress

by mamaesme (ooka)



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-10
Updated: 2010-11-10
Packaged: 2017-10-13 04:01:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 38,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/132617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ooka/pseuds/mamaesme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nyota, under the name Stania, is the most dangerous swordmistress alive, and three men from Enterprise have come to secure a contract with her.  In return for asylum and a vision saving antidote, all Nyota has to do is kill Nero and keep her identity a secret from James Kirk.</p><p>But that last part is more for the sake of her sanity than an actual order.  After all, Jim's mourned death of his best friend and guardian, and Nyota knows he won't forgive her if she tells him she's been alive past ten years.  Even if she's been waging a war just for him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three men came to the village looking for a women. Three men called Kirk, Spock and McCoy. This is how the end of her ten year avoidance of Enterprise began.

It begins to rain the moment they _finally_  reach the village.

Not that rain would be uncommon to the area, Jim Kirk notes idly.  The small village is located between the territories of Vulcan and Earth, caught between their two very different climates.  However, strangers like himself are not as usual as the rain, especially if the looks they are gaining are any measure.

Spock says nothing at his side, attentively gazing through the light rain.  Jim allows his eyes to travel the same path, gazing over the landscape.  For a small, forgotten village, it is thriving.  There aren’t any dilapidated houses, the children look wide eyed, but joyful, and the three travelers are only met with suspicion, not fear.  No one here has been touched by the past ten years of conflict.  They show none of the terror that plague the people of Enterprise.  That afflict his home.  His people.

And it’s all his fault. He stops thinking about the frightened people he is trying, and failing, to save and instead looks at the ones before him.  They have to have a hidden beneficiary, someone who could make ludicrous amounts of money in warring times like these.  There are only two types who can do that nowadays – the weapons dealers and the mercenaries.

 _Maybe_ , he thinks desperately for a single, hopeful moment, _maybe we will finally find_ her here.

“What do we do now?” Bones rasps from beside him, weary and world worn. Jim feels the same tiredness and desperation deep in his own bones, but he can’t show it.  He can’t let anyone know how much he wants to give up.  He can’t because Kirk’s aren’t allowed that luxury.  They are allowed very few pleasures in life, and the last time he let himself express his feelings…

Dragging his eyes back across the inhabitants of the village, Jim stops that line of thought before it can go any further.  Thoughts about    
_that girl_     
never end well.  It’s better to cut off a dead limb than be hindered by the blinding pain the rest of his days.

Not that he could ever take a breath; have a single heartbeat, without her haunting his every step.

Spock turns his head, tracking the movement of a small child running towards the forest.  “We wait,” the Vulcan states calmly.  “He saw your ring.  She should be coming soon.”

Jim smiles, all teeth and no feeling.  Soon, the swordmistress would find them, and then, they could discuss the proposition that Enterprise – that    
they    
– have for her.

Finally, the war could come to an end after ten long, long years, and she could be avenged.  And maybe, just maybe, Jim could breathe without feeling regret bogging down his every movement.

 _Maybe_.


	2. Part One

Leveling her blades, Nyota breathes in, calm and peaceful until she clears her mind.  All that is left in the world is the steel in her hands and the steady pumping of her blood.  Across from her, the rustling of the grass assures her that Sulu has assumed the ready position.  He is ready.   
  
Nyota closes her eyes for a moment and prays, just for a second,  Mura ,  goddess of war and rebirth, steady my blade, before exhaling and leaping towards Sulu.  

He sees her first swing coming, instantly sliding his stance out to steady himself against her momentum.   Sulu braces his katana against the thrust of the blade in her right hand and dances away from the strike from the one in her left.     
  
She smiles over their blades, just enough to make his eyes widen before she pulls back suddenly, darting away.  Sulu had to catch himself to keep from falling, adjusting his weight as he rights himself.  She continues to grin as he watches her, suddenly wary.  Her mouth tilts further upwards as Sulu takes her lack of movement as a chance to go on the offensive.   
  
Carefully precise, he attacks in a flurry of activity.  He grabs a dagger from his thigh, just as she is weaving away from his blade, and catches the edge of her shoulder with it.

Nyota doesn’t stop smiling, even as blood begins to run down her arm guards.

He thinks too much , she muses, continuing to avoid every strike that grows more and more furious as time goes on.  After the first blood, Nyota bobs and weaves, watching his stance, looking for an opening of any sort, but Sulu’s defensive is tight.  But she knows him, and after fourteen months of training, she knows he’ll get sloppier the more frustrated he gets.  He always does.  

They continue to dance around each other, Nyota leading him closer and closer to the heavily wooded area away from the clearing, an idea forming in her mind’s eyes.  She smile deepens, and Sulu’s jaw tightens.

He knows her as well, after fourteen months of training, and knows the manic look Nyota knows she has in her eyes.  He also knows to fear it.  It always leads to bloodshed, usually not Nyota’s.

Her right blade trails down his, and the steel shrieks at the movement.   Sulu is distracted by the piercing noise, and Nyota takes advantage of his distraction.

Thrusting her left sword into the ground, Nyota abruptly pulls the other back from the latest parry.  Sulu is sweating slightly, and her lips curled at the evidence of his exhaustion.   
  
“Ready to give up?” she calls, taking the moment to flick her eyes to the left.  Ten paces between her and the nearest tree.  She could make do with that.   
  
Sulu narrows his eyes at the change in strategy.  “No.”   
  
“Only if you’re sure,” she offers with a smirk just before he charges at her with a low roar.     
  
Men , Nyota thinks fondly.  They  always react when you challenge their abilities.   
  
She turns, lunging across the space between her and the tree.  Right before she could hit the tree face on, Nyota leaps upwards into the branches.  She is near enough to tree to feel the birch rustle against her tied back hair.  She hung in the air, hidden deep within the old oak’s branches, for barely the span of a heartbeat.  Then, she twists, kicking her right foot against the tree.

When she begins to fall, Nyota angles at Sulu, and dropping towards him faster than he can react.   
  
Hikaru attempts to move, aghast at her speed.  By then, it is too late.  Stania is already plummeting at him so fast that he barely has time to raise his weapon in defense.     
  
She arches her sword upwards, allowing their blades to clash with a loud  clang that reverberates throughout the clearing.  His counter pushes Nyota a few feet away, but she landed on her feet, panting.  Still, she is in better shape than Sulu, whose muscles are shaking from the effort of fending off her latest attack.  

Narrowing her eyes, Nyota takes in the trembling of his body and sweat pouring down his torso.  Whatever garment he had covering it was ripped off at some point in the challenge, probably because the steadily increase in rainfall had waterlogged it.   
  
“Again,” she calls softly, thrusting her second sword into the ground, leaving her without a blade at all.  In a change of direction, Nyota reaches into the pouch tied around her thigh.  Her fingers easily twist around the throwing stars and daggers she always carried in there.  Hikaru mirrors her movements, leaving his blade aside and gathering his own projectiles.   
  
“Go,” he says roughly, before taking off into a sprint into the tree line.  It was harder to hit ones target when they were hidden in the shadows.     
  
Nyota throws a few stars, but he’s too fast.  They slide into the wood as he dodges into the tree line.  They exchange a few throws, Nyota not really trying to hit her target but attempting to draw him out, while Sulu is aiming with a nearly lethal accuracy.   
  
The pace is broken when her vision wavers for a moment, blurring around the edges, and Nyota curses loudly (and  very vulgarly) in Romulan.   Not now, don’t fail me  now .   
  
However, it clears when she blinks.  It wouldn’t stay that way for long she, so this fight needed to end,  quickly , or there was real danger that she wouldn’t be able to keep Sulu from killing her.  He is  good , with a blade – she wouldn’t train him if he wasn’t, but one wrong move, one second of inattention, and her head may not remain attached to her shoulders.

Not for the first time, she curses the man who had injured her eyes ten years ago.  If only she had struck that final blow instead of pausing at the idea of her first kill…   
  
The change in the sound around her broke Nyota from her thoughts and she leaped to the right, barely in time to dodge the kunai aimed for her jugular.  It barely whistles past the bare skin on her neck, but the blade did nothing beside focus her mind on the task at hand – Sulu.   
  
Listening closely, she ignores the sounds of the nearby animals, the breeze, and the rustle of the tree leaves.  She waits, patiently, for the one noise that would be different; the one noise that would give Sulu away.   
  
In the end, it is the sound of a twig breaking.   
  
Spinning around, Nyota leaps into the forest intent on finding Sulu, who is probably arming himself to the teeth for a hand to hand fight.

Storm clouds have been rolling in all morning, and finally, heavier, fat raindrops began to pour around her.  A few raindrops made it through the coverage the trees provided, but it made visibility in the area hard.  Nyota closes her eyes, ignoring her rapidly blurring eyesight, and the fact that had nothing to do with the rain before utilizing her other senses to end the fight decided to use her other, functioning, senses.     
  
The direction of crumpling dead leaves and thuds on hard dirt, whispers to Nyota that he is coming from the right.  The whistle in the air reminds her of the two kunai Hikaru has left – he carries two dozen on his person.  She ducks at the very last minute, but not quickly enough.  The kunai slices through her form fitting attire and into the skin of her back.  But she doesn’t have time for that, not when Sulu is right in front of  her.    
  
With a wicked grin twisting her lips, Nyota grabs the long, thin needle that she kept in her hair.  She slams her body into Sulu until he falls to the ground, taking her with him.  Nyota fumbles with him, but all movement ceases when she drags the needle, a senbon, against his carotid artery.  If Sulu even breathes wrong, she could sever it, and he would be unconscious in less than two minutes and dead in five.   
  
She opens her eyes to see her student’s stunned expression, even if it is somewhat blurred.  “Got you,” she pleasantly hums.  Her tone is at odds with the needle she’s holding against Sulu’s throat, but this isn’t just any enemy, this is  Hikaru .  

Words and traditions have meanings in her world.  Ceremonies are vital to everyday life.  She needs him to say the words and formally end this fight, until then, he is her enemy who would kill her without a second thought.  He has to say the words because it is a rule.  Nyota lives and breathes by her convictions, the rules that guide them all.  The last time she went against them, she was nearly gutted like a fish.   
  
He doesn’t say anything for a long time, breathing as deeply as he could with the needle digging into his skin, and the rain cooling both their sweaty bodies.  Her body is draped across his, knee between his legs, one arm braced against the ground, and the other at his neck. Sulu doesn’t move, leaving his legs wrapped around her ankles, ready to flip her, and arms loosely placed on her shoulders.  They stay like that for a long time, warily watching each other.   
  
“I yield,” he finally says, bowing his head as required.  Nyota allows the battle-inspired visage to droop into a truly gentle smile.   
  
Pulling away the needle, she places a finger under his chin until Sulu looks up.  “You did well,” begins, but he huffs angrily at the praise.  “Truly Hikaru.  You had me a few times, especially with your first offensive attack.  I did not expect you to add in the dagger.”   
  
His lips tilting upwards, Sulu’s face brightens.  “Really?” he asks, as she pushes off the ground, allowing him to sit up as she stands.  She hides a wince as the wound on her back stings.   
  
“Yes,” she easily returns, gathering up a few throwing stars that were entrenched in the ground nearby.  “You did get blood which was better than what you were doing fourteen months ago.”   
  
The man before her scowls at the reminder of those early days, and she does as well.  They were filled with a stubborn young man wanting vengeance for his family’s unjust murder, and a woman who was only slightly more reluctant than drunk when it came to training him.  Silently, she pushes them away and finishes picking up the weapons littering the forest.  Sulu does the same, following her out of the forest to the clearing.   
  
The rain began to plaster her long hair to her skin, and with deft fingers, Nyota ropes the dark strands until they formed a bun and stuck a few senbon into the pile to keep them from falling.  She did nothing for the fabric that was clinging to her skin because it  had  been clinging beforehand.  The leather was uncomfortable wet, but Nyota was far too used to uncomfortable situations to truly care.     
  
Pulling out the first of two uchigatana she had been using earlier, she studies long blade for any damage.  It is weapon made for speed and quick moves, finished to kill a man with a simple flick of her wrist.  There was not a scratch, and even if Scotty is a raging drunk, he knows his way around a sword.  Its twin was just as unblemished, much to her satisfaction.   
  
Sulu follows her lead, checking his dual katana.  He hadn’t had a chance to attack her with the second of the blades, and Nyota is glad.  Her student is far too proficient in close handed combat for her to feel comfortable fighting with her increasing handicap.    
  
Comfortable in the silence, both exchange weaponry until they pack away all of their weapons.  The swordmistress grabs a robe from the depths of her pack and drapes the simple blue fabric around her figure.  Turning, she knots a scrap of yellow fabric and sees Sulu eyeing her clothing with a curious look.

It is merely a scrap of silk, but the robe  did cover the tattoos that arch across her body, marking her as a swordmistress.  They are symbols of how far she had come, and warning to those who knew how to read the runes.  Blatantly showing them usually led to battles she didn’t want to waste her time on, and covering them saved her the time and effort when crossing the inevitable fame hunters.

They adorn her body, but not her face.  There isn’t a single marking on her face because that is a trait of the Romulan’s, and the Romulans have taken enough from her that she refuses to give them another piece of her.  Nothing touches her face except for a small mask that she always wears.  It is her mark identifying factor. The faceless swordmistress Stania.

She cocks her head to the side, and Sulu finally says, “You’d look better in red.”

Nyota stiffens.  “I don’t wear red.”  Any more.

His eyes slide from her to the tree line.  “Huh,” he grunts.

He doesn’t pursue the topic.  Nyota doesn’t reveal her secrets, and Sulu doesn’t press.  She isn’t delusion enough to not see that her student can easily read between the lines, and is quickly piecing together the puzzle that she has become over the past decade.   
  
 “Ready swordmistress?” Hikaru queries, when she turned her gaze upwards at the lightening crackling across the sky, grasping a simple porcelain mask in her white knuckled grip.   
  
She glares slightly at the title.  “I have told you to not be formal a thousand times Hikaru.  Will you ever call me by my name?”   
  
He shrugs, staring over her shoulder at something in the distance.  “I dislike fake names,  Stania .”  He stresses the name she goes by, clearly communicating he knows something, but what she doesn’t know.   
  
Nyota closes her eyes in response.  She hates the name too, but her real one, Nyota of the House of Uhura of Enterprise, would cause too much unwanted attention, so she adopted a new one.  But there are days when she wishes she could still freely call herself by the name given to her by her mother and father.  Remember exactly who she fought for back in Enterprise.  What she couldn’t ever return to.   
  
“Alright,” she murmurs, turning back towards the village.  “We should head back and get out of the rain.”   
  
That is when a little boy broke past the tree line.  “Swordmistress!” he cries, panting from the run.  “Swordmistress!  There are men with weapons in the village!”   
  
Glancing back at the suddenly grim man, she tilts her head.  Sulu nods, knowing the signal and she leaves him, reassuring the boy as she takes off towards the gate to see the strangers.  She is off to see just who would come to a village in the middle of nowhere for no apparent reason at all.

She grins.  Oh, this is going to be  fun .   
  


  
It takes Nyota mere minutes to cross the village to where three cloaked men are congregating.  They are easy to spot, the rich brocades their clothing’s made from is beyond the means of anyone from the area.   

Women hurry their children indoors and men watch the three with a steady eye.  Nyota smiles.  At least they took her warnings to heart when she settled here eight months ago.

She turns her attention back to the three men.  Their stances are clearly non-threatening, and they don’t seem to be targeting the villagers.  Instead they watch the forest for movement.  Though, the rain gave away the fact that the men have weapons on them, swords if her judgments are right.  They usually are.  

However, she can’t leave the blanket of the forest without attracting the stranger’s attention, which she doesn’t want just yet.  Instead, she studies them from afar.  

The man on the left, in a muddy brown cloak, seems annoyed as he argues about something while gesturing wildly.  The gesticulations allow his cloak to gape open just enough to reveal a herb pouch attached to his side.  

Must be a medic , Nyora muses.  He would not be much of a fighter, sworn to protecting humans.  Three moves would be the most effort she would have to put into taking him out.   
  
She turns her attention to the man on the far right in the blue cloak.  His arms are carefully folded behind his back, and his spine is painful erect.  The man seems at ease with the posture as he quietly disputes the fact brown cloak is trying to make.  There is a confidence in his stance and a simplicity in his movements that reminded Nyota of an animal – a dangerous animal.  The ones that seem demure until they leap at you and tore your throat out.  This one is a threat, so she should take him out first, using surprise to even the odds.

Moving her gaze around the scene, Nyota easily catches sight of the third member of the party.  Black cloak settles back, letting this companions argue as if it is a commonplace activity, for all she knows it could be. However, there is a glint of gold on the thumb of his left hand, a ring.  

Ah, the royal ring is the leader, she hums. Leader and now, Nyota’s main target.  Never mind blue cloak and the fact that he made her uneasy, this man, the third one, he is dangerous.  Royalty always is.

On a second glance, Nyota takes while she looks for the best way to attack, he doesn’t hold himself like a royal.  He leans against tree, slouched, but there is a twitch of his hood that told her he is observing the surrounding area, just like her.     
  
As a group, the trio doesn’t seem like they are here for nefarious reasons.  But when someone with a royal ring comes by, it means one of three things.  Someone put a price on her head,  again , a royal wants to keep her as his trophy wife, or someone wants to employ the local swordmistress to do their dirty work for them.   
  
It is, in all honestly, probably the third option.  If it is the first or the second, there would be more men.  Because, if nothing else, her reputation alone demands for more than three adversaries in any battle situation.

Black cloak is the most dangerous, probably the one most likely to attack her.  Blue cloak would attack only after following his lead or to protect him.  Brown would join in the fight last, conflicted by his oath.  Yet, Nyota could sidestep the entire matter by never drawing her sword.  They are here to talk, not fight.

But before she would ever approach them, she needs to know about the men under the hoods.  And the only way to see their faces is to startle them.  Deliberately, she steps on a group of twigs until they crack loudly.   
  
At the sound, black cloak rotates on his heel in the direction of sound, toppling the hood with the shifting.  And suddenly, Nyota is grateful for the protection the dark, cloudy sky and the shadows of the forest provide her.  

Because, peering into the trees is James from the Kirk House, the second son and future Lord Commander of Enterprise’s forces.  The entire situation, she thinks with maybe a little dread and a slight thrill of excitement, has just become a thousand time more complicated than it was before.

“Who’s there?” Kirk calls, attempting to see into the heavy shadows. 

Nyota knows,  knows , she can’t get away without them attempting to follow.  And while she could, most likely, take them, the blades woman doesn’t want to.  

Instead she secures the white mask to her face, and steps lightly from the cloak of the trees.  Even with the rain, she shifts to make her robe flutter in the stormy breeze.  It serves a dual purpose, attracting the playboy nature Kirk is notorious for and reminding them that she is armed to the teeth.  Tricks, she knows, are just one way to keep your opponent from realizing you were two steps behind and struggling to keep up.

“I hear that you are looking for someone,” she purrs.  Pleasure prickles down Nyota’s spine as she watches the men closely following her movements.  They believe the stories told about her.   Good .  Because they are all true.  Every single bloody tale.

“May I be of service, James of the House of Kirk?”  She widely bows, but it is shallow enough for everyone to know she is playing with them.  The brown cloaked figure stiffens.  

Kirk, however, smirks at the question.  The expression doesn’t meet his eyes, she notes, as he fails to fix his hood, even in the heavy rain.  But then again, she has no cover either.  

“We are actually looking for you, swordmistress,” he drawls, casual and relaxing as if she isn’t a danger to him.  He is either very foolish or very confident in his own abilities.  Either way, she’s amused by his guts.

“There are many swordmistresses,” Stania idly muses.   “How do you know you have the right one?  I could be a poor peasant woman for all you know.”

Blue cloak pulls back his hood, revealing the distinct features of a Vulcan.  “You came from the north direction, following the path a child ran to inform you of our presence.  Your clothing is made from high quality, and you wear a kunai holder around your thigh; the fabric and metal weapons are something a peasant could never afford.  Also, there are two uchigatana under your robe whose scabbards show some wear, so presumably, you use them often and are proficient with blades.”

“Oh,” Nyota rears back in delight and claps her hands together in a manner that is only half mocking this time.  “There is that intellect your desert country is famous for.  I am a bit more than ‘proficient’ with my blades, but then again, you already know that.  I believe you were just trying to rile me up.”

The Vulcan says nothing.

She begins to move again, circling the trio.  It serves two purposes: helping her double check for traps and keeping the men before her on their toes.

Spock inclines his head, but does not speak, deferring to Kirk as leader of the group.  However, Nyota is not done with him – not yet.  “You are from the clan of Sarek.  I can tell because you have your mother’s kind eyes.”

His companions visibly flinch, and Nyota nearly rolls her eyes.   She hasn’t killed the woman.  Amanda is running around amusing that emotionless husband of hers to this day, if her information is correct. After all, one doesn’t kill women who can sew a straight line on a gaping stomach wound.  Especially ones Nyota considered herself to be close enough to be her sister of spirit.

“My mother wished to express her sorrow of the death of your previous companion,” Spock returns, a gleam in his dark eyes.  He knows more about her than his companions; the set of his jaw tells her that he is more than willing to divulge every detail for the necessity of whatever mission they were on.

Nyota pauses in her casual circle around the trio once she reaches the beginning again.  Even the mere mention of Galia tugs at her heartstrings enough to make her chest physically ache.  “I will thank her the next time I pass through Vulcan,” she says, bitter emotions darkening her voice.  

Her next words are short and to the point.  “What is it want Kirk?  I want nothing to do with your war.”

Kirk leans forward, a wicked smile on his lips and a glimmer in his eyes.  “What about our common enemy?”

“What enemy is that?” she hums. feeling her heart beat a little faster as a face came into her mind.   Harsh tattoos, a three pronged staff in his hand…

“Nero.”

…and dead eyes that told nothing as she fought against him, young and confident.  Attack after attack, until she turned the battle where he was on the defensive, and he pulled an underhanded move, throwing a dust into her eyes, and suddenly she was unable to see.  Oh Goddess, I’m going to die .  A hand around her throat and cool steel at her side.  “I can see you, little girl, can you see me?”   And  pain blossoming, eating at her, destroying her from the inside out.  

“What of him?” Nyota asks diffidently, shaking off the haunting tremors of pain.  It had been ten years,  ten years , and she isn’t weak any more.  No longer is she a Guardian – in – training pushing her dearest friend away, hoping to buy him enough time to get to safety, thinking,  oh Goddess, not Jim.  Don’t let him die today.

“There is a rumor going around,” Kirk muses aloud, keenly paying attention to the matter at hand even if he was attempting to be casual, too.  “A rumor that says you promised Nero to deliver the blow that would sever his head and body.  Though, I believe that is only a summary.  I would quote everything, but there are so many words in it a  woman should not hear.”

Sulu chooses that moment to descend from the shadows, watching the interaction before him with attentive eyes.  Nyota pulls closer to Kirk, paying no attention to the men tensing beside him, leaving them to Hikaru. She trusts him, maybe just as much as she had once trusted the man standing before her.

“How much do you know about  women ?” she ponders aloud.    “Because we can do so much more than just sit and look pretty.  After all, I  do like to paint things red.”

It is a veiled threat, but she knows Kirk understands it by the slight widening of his eyes and sudden manic smile.  “So blood thirsty,” he whispers, staring at her mask.  “I wonder what made you so violent.”

“I hope you never have to know,” she says, suddenly serious as she pulls back, remembering the heat and determination.  “We wouldn’t want to ruin that pretty smile of yours.”

“Hope has no place on the battlefield, only ghost and dead bodies,” he returns, just as bitter.  

They both stand there, disgruntled and haunted by things the other does not know nor understands.  Nyota knows deep within her, watching Kirk’s expression, that her answer to his eventual question is simple.  It’s constantly the same answer when it comes to him.  No matter the mask she wears, or name she uses.  It’s always the same.

“Do you keep your promises, swordmistress?” Kirk asks the sky suddenly.  

Nyota stays where she is, close enough to touch Kirk but unwilling to do so.  “I do.”

“Then, you would want to the honors of doing keeping your rather violent promise when a small party attacks Nero’s fortress in three weeks.”

She purses her lips under the mask.  “What is in it for me?”   
  
“Besides Nero’s head and asylum in Earth and Vulcan?” The brown cloaked man scoffs as he pulls down his hood.   Goddess , it’s Leonard McCoy.  Spock, of the House of Sarek, a Kirk, and the head medic in Enterprise – the village is serious with its proposition.  “I have an antidote to the damned poison eating away at your eyesight.”

She should be shocked, honestly, but instead, hysteria bubbled in her throat until Nyota threw her head back and laughed and laughed until her entire body shook.  Her eyesight could be  fixed .

Only six people knew about her the poison eating away at her sight.   She is one, the second did it, the third had stopped it best she could, the fourth is a drunk, the fifth is dead, and the sixth is behind her.  

Someone is telling secrets , Nyota thinks, wondering if she should kiss them or kill them.

“Oh,” she gasps between giggles.  “You are serious. You honestly can do it.”

“Yes,” McCoy bites out angrily. “Do you doubt my skills?  Because I know my way around my own damn expertise.”

“I don’t doubt you,” the swordmistress returns, mirth still dripping from her words.  “I have heard wondrous stories about your medical escapades.  I have also seen, first hand, the damages your own poisons have done.  I just wonder, who has been talking about things they shouldn’t.”

The doctor calmly stares at the eye-holes of her mask.  “Treatment for the head of Nero; that is all I can give you.  No names or samples.  Just the treatment.”

Spinning on her heel, Nyota faces Kirk finally, distancing herself from the trio and placing herself beside Sulu’s lean figure.  She voices the question that had been nagging at her since Kirk had been first revealed.  “What vendetta do you have against Nero, besides this war?  You truly want this man dead, if you are willing to employ my special brand of help.”  

Kirk’s body trembles with restrained rage and grief.  “He killed a precious friend of mine.  Her body was never even found.”

Nyota didn’t move, she barely breaths.  “What was her name?”   
  
“Why do you need to know?” McCoy spats.  “You mercenaries only fight for a reward, nothing else.”

Eyes never leaving Kirk, Stania answers, “I am neither a mercenary nor a warrior, and I am one of the few swordmistresses left in this province.  I use my blades for more than meaningless violence.  I shed blood because my convictions demand compensation for the sins those individuals have already committed. Tell me, whose blood spilling in exchange for Nero’s?  Who do you want me to avenge?”

“Her name was Uhura.”

Nyota’s breath catches in her throat, her stomach turns itself in knots, while all she wants to do is scream.  He isn’t supposed to still be looking for her.  She was assured,  assured , that he would get over the death of his friend.  He would get over her sacrifice, and she had been  promised  that his vendetta would not go this far.

It had been sworn Kirk would forget Nyota Uhura and live his life happily, while she disappeared into the shadows and found a way to kill the warlord who had taken Sovereign George Kirk’s life and then twisted hers into the half existence she survives in now.

Nyota Uhura, best friend to Jim and Leonard, is supposed to be dead.  And she is, at least to Kirk.  But here she stands, under the title swordmistress Stania, mostly alive and only slightly sane as she collects herself, hiding her body language before it can give anything away.  

She places a hand on Sulu’s shoulder, quietly telling him the decision before she verbalizes it.  Out of the corner of her eye, she sees her student turn his head aside, not trusting those before him.  

She understands his mistrust, but she knows, even if the terms were unsatisfactory, that she would answer the same way.  She’s never been able to tell Jim ‘no’, and she isn’t starting now.

“I accept,” she says softly, before taking her leave of them.

  
When she turns, the fabric catches on what is turning out to be a gaping wound on her back. Nyota lets out the barest of hisses, hoping no one will hear her, but Sulu does.  He always does.

His eyes narrow in her direction and he covers her flank.  His position, she can tell from the corner of her eye, hides the injury, and bloody fabric, from sight of the three. 

She should tell McCoy can let him deal with it, but for all her knowledge of the men following her to the small wooden structure she and Sulu call a home, she doesn’t  know them. She knows who two of the men were, ten years ago, heard rumors of who they have become, and listened to stories of the third from his wistful mother over tea.  She doesn’t know  them as they are today, however, so she doesn’t trust them enough with the knowledge she is injured.

Still Sulu covers her, even though he disapproves of everything else, and she has to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling, even though the pain.  Because Hikaru doesn’t trust easily, and he doesn’t like strangers.  

He is a dedicated student, knows his way around a blade before they even met, and thrives at her side, fighting a silent war because he  chooses to.  Not like her.  Not like Galia.  

The fact that he has placed such a trust in her that he would protect her is breathtaking and frightening.  She knows he could stand on his own in a fight and their training should be long finished, but she is terrified that in the end Nero would get him like he had Galia.

Galia, her dearest friend, who had ended up a bloody present on her doorstep..  The girl’s cloudy green eyes had been staring up the bottom of  the box when she had opened the lid.  A note had been nailed to her pastily green forehead.   ‘Found your little spy, swordmistress. Have you tired of this game yet? You know all I really want is  you . ’

They stop before the small wooden hut she and Sulu call home.  It’s clean and well cared for but still small.  Barely large enough for them, it is far too small for her three guests to follow. “Wait here,” she says, not caring to look back at her employers, and that’s all they are to her.  That’s all she can allow them to be. “We will pack and be back in a moment.”

Quickly, she makes her way to the door.  Sulu is on her heels, keeping her furious pace, and letting the swordmistress know he is unhappy with the fact that she is wounded and had not taken the time to inform him.

No words are needed for the exchange.  Sulu and she have done this many times.  Nyota places her hands against a wall hidden from the windows and the three men’s view.  She leans and heard her student gathering a few things before coming to stand behind her.

She watches him lean over from the corner of her eye and steadies herself.   The pain beats a heavy tattoo through her that strengthens when Sulu separates the silk from the wound.  It rolls down her back, arched up her spine and made Nyota bite her tongue.  It  hurts .

Without a word, Sulu divests her of the ruined fabric and top.  His movements are efficient, and he tries to touch her as little as possible.  Sometimes, she wonders if he had been abused.  He moves as lightly as he can and avoids touching like the plague.  Sulu wouldn’t be the first person to lose his innocence because of the world’s cruelty.  Nor is he the last.  (And she  hates that fact.  Because she lost hers to it, to Nero, and they all suffer because of the world’s cruelty.)

He gathers some jars of crushed herbs, before carefully opening them.  The he rubs the numbing paste around the edges of the ragged wound, applies a pouch of herbs directly on the wound to speed up the healing process before wraps a bandage around the wound.  Nyota never made a sound.

He stands there for a moment, heavily breathing before saying.  “Why?”

“Why what?” Nyota asks, turning without shame. She has no clothes on the top half of her body, but then again, neither does he.  

“Why did you accept this offer?” he counters.

“They can save my eyesight,” she returns easily.

“It’s more than that,” he says.  “I know you, and it is more than that.”

He doesn’t say anything, and Nyota ducks around him, gathering a shirt.  Carefully places it over her head, she lets it hand loosely around her, too large but more comfortable than her usual clinging garb.

“You have always been partial to Enterprise,” he says, stepping to her left to hand her a bag.  

Nyota takes it without a word, picking up weapons with a single minded precision.  Her daggers, senbon and stars are packed away in pouches, Sulu’s as well.  She begins to reach for the blades, eyeing them for merit.

“Always,” Sulu repeats faintly, like he is putting together the pieces of a puzzle, and honestly Nyota isn’t surprised.  He’s always been good at this type of thing.  “Like you were protecting them.”

Nyota reaches, gathering two blades to add to the two she already has.  They would do nicely, considering the challenge before her.  She doesn’t know the situation but they should cover them all.  If not, Enterprise has an armory, and there is always Scotty.

Sulu stills behind her, and Nyota turns, offering him the bag for weaponry, so he can add his own.  He doesn’t take it, just stares at her.  “Why did you not return?”

She considers throwing the bag at him but decides not to.   “I was promised they would be all right,” she sighs.

“Why help him now?” he shoots back.

Nyota runs a hand through her unbound hair.  “Because he isn’t, and I have to kill Nero.”

Sulu drops the bag in his hands.  “Why do  you  have to kill Nero?  Why do you act like you are the only one who can kill Nero?”

“Because,” Nyota roars. She is furious, tired and has lost all semblance of control.  Nyota doesn’t know how to tell him, how to make him understand because she doesn’t and this is her  life .  She just knows. “Because I am the only one Nero will let close to him, because I am the one who he ruined, because I have to do this to save Jim from himself, even if that means I have to die to do it!”

“Why won’t you live?  Why won’t you take your second chance and run with it?”

“Because,” she calms as she silently releases her emotions, like T’Pau taught her.  “This isn’t a second chance.  This is a half life!”

Sulu quiets, staring at her.  “Alright,” he says.  “Alright.”

They pack much more efficiently after that.

When they exit the building, the three men watch them.  Kirk stares at her, easy smile gone.  His eyes are calculating, and Nyota knows he is trying to figure out just how big of a mistake he has made contracting her.  Her lips twist under the mask.

Amanda’s son eyes them with careful consideration.  He is trying to figure out her skills.  Be if from her walk, the way she holds her body, or even the calluses he could feel on her fingers, Spock is watching her like she is a specimen under a microscope.  She turns her attention to him, challenging him with her own gaze.  Nyota, before all of this, had studied all languages, including body language.  Two can play this game. 

Mockly she bows to Spock, Son of Sarek, from the Clan of Surak.  He is just as powerful a member in society as Kirk, and it is...remiss...of her to not acknowledge that.  Spock does not visibily react, but the way his eyebrow twitches gives Nyota enough of a response.  He is intrigued by her, but he does not respect her.  

Nyota doesn’t care.  Why should she?  But the way he stands beside Kirk, like he belongs there, makes she hate him a little.  Even though she has always been intrigued by the Vulcan son Amanda raves about, Nyota can’t help but hate him in this moment.  Because he stands in her place.

Apparently, Nyota is replaceable.

While it should placate her that Jim has moved on, in only small ways, it doesn’t.  It eats at her gut, tears at her, until she closes her eyes and breathes out, thinking of the desert sands and T’Pau’s soothing gaze.   Emotions, Nyota, are something that are precious, but they can overwhelm you and distract you.  When you hold a blade, you hold someone else’s life in your hands.  Do not allow emotions to cloud your judgement, because that could mean the death of an innocent.

When she open them, Nyota sees McCoy just glaring at her.  Stubborn to a fault, Leonard.  Nyota smiles, even if it is faintly, at that.  At least one thing hasn’t changed in ten years.

“Did you come on horses?” Sulu asks suddenly.

McCoy’s scowl darkens.  “Of course.  Do you take us for idiots?”

Sulu nods indulgently; Nyota nearly laughs at the promise of pain in his eyes.  He has never taken well to sarcasm.  Usually, he hides it better, but Sulu is too angry with her and the Enterprise trio to even try.  “I merely wanted to know if we needed to procure some horses for you.”

McCoy looks like he wants to open his mouth and say something scathing, but Kirk steps in.  “They are on the outside of the village.  Shall we meet you there?”  His tone is neutral, but he stares at Nyota.

Cheekily, she replies with a careless, “outside the gate would be best.”

Kirk nods before heading off in the direction of the gate.  The two other men follow him instinctively. Once they are out of sight, Nyota pulls off her mask, letting the rain drip down her skin.  “You are far too trusting of them,” Sulu says beside her.

“And you aren’t trusting at all,” she returns, beginning to walk into the village.  

He scoffs.  “ You haven’t been into Earth in two years, and you don’t show them your face.  I trust them the same amount you do.”

“Good,” she says.  “You may live past my training yet.”

They arrange for the horses with a villager.  He is paid a ridiculous amount for the two horses, but Nyota has learned over the years that if she wants to keep her place in a village secret, she must have these moments of charity. Poor villagers would do anything to keep the steady flow of money coming.

They leave without fanfare and only a few wide eyed stares from behind closed doors.  She knows the mothers and fathers use her as a horror story to threaten their children, like if they don’t eat their greens the masked swordswoman will comes and take them from their beds late one night.  There is very little respect between the villagers and their protector.  Money, she has seen, buys anything.

Before reaching the outskirts, Nyota replaces the mask and raises the hood of her cloak.  The less attention she can call to herself, the less fighting she will have to do while wounded.  And the least likely it will be that her employers would figure out about the wound.

She snorts lightly at the thought.  She had been damaged goods since before “Stania” was born in the sand dunes of Vulcan.

Over the crest of the hill, she could see the three men through the light drizzle.  They seem to be conferencing, Kirk shaking his head at McCoy’s council while Spock held his tongue.  

Her lips twist in an ugly manner as she and Hikaru grow closer.  They are idiots to believe she didn’t know every detail about them or Nero before taking this job.  She is not an the brute they think she is. 

There is always clauses when it comes to hiring a merchant of death.  The mercenary can leave whenever he or she wished.  They killed efficiently.  And they never gave their real name.

All truly good merchants have prices on their heads, and Nyota is no different from the rest.  But her people, the mercenaries, have reputations to take care of, along with their own governing circle to keep everyone in line.

And she is one of the governors – not that Kirk or his companions know that.

“Well,” she hums as she pulls her horse close to the three.  They all start, like little boys caught with their pants down.  “What do we have here?  It seems like a  very  secret meeting.”

She glances at Sulu out of the corner of her eye; he looks very unimpressed. 

“So,” she leans forward with a cheery voice.  “Do we get to hear the plan or is it one of those secret plans?”

Kirk stares her down.  “This is nothing you need to know at this time.”

Nyota slumps, making her posture appear to be the epitome of a pouting child.  However, her tone is sharply at odds with her stance, a dark promise weaving between her words.  “I always find out in the end, my dear gentlemen.”

McCoy turns away from her, either disgusted or disturbed, but either suit her just fine.  Spock follows his companion’s motions, making his horse move forward with only a twitch of his hand.  However, Kirk watches her moving forward, following the her and Sulu, with narrowed eyes.  He doesn’t trust her, she’s known from the beginning. He’s second guessing contracting her, but Enterprise is too desperate to pull out now.

Nyota has no qualms with that.  Desperate people always make for better companions to fight with.  They never questions her actions, no matter how blood thirsty they are.

And hers are truly bloody.

Kirk takes guard, Spock takes point, and McCoy rides beside them, and they leave the village while it is still raining, and Nyota can’t help but think that her return to Enterprise will be as dark as the time she left it.

The closer they get to Enterprise, the more dangerous traveling gets.  The neutral area between Vulcan and Earth (especially closer to the North where Enterprise is located) is swarming with Nero’s troops and various mercenaries as a blockage of sorts.  Kirk takes them through back roads, weaving around in a circuitous route that skimmed on enemy camps and some times lead them to the middle of no where.

Nyota lets him lead.  Sulu makes a few abortive movements to buck at Kirk’s authority, but the royal has always had the charisma of a natural born leader.  She isn’t surprised when her student quietly begins to watch Kirk, following his movements with a wary, but respectful, eye.

They end up camping on the edge of the plains, near a forest, close enough for a defense if need be, but far enough that they can’t be snuck up on.  Nyota keeps silent as she drops from her horse, ignoring the jarring pain in her back.

While they step up camp, she ducks her head in a move of uncharacteristic mildness.  The pain shivers down her spine, and Nyota has to grind her teeth to keep from crying out in pain as she unpacks the food she brought silently.

McCoy edges into the forest, searching for herbs.  Sulu ventures a ways away to practice with his blade, and Spock disappears as well.  They all leave the immediate area until it is only her and Kirk, who is watching her movements with careful consideration.

“What?” she says, finally, through gritted teeth.

“Nothing,” Kirk replies faintly.  

Nyota wants, honestly wants, to draw her blade and demand for the man to stop watching her.  He has no right, and there is something unnerving about the way he stares at her.  And Nyota has not been unnerved for a number of years.

Twisting her head to look at Kirk, it is merely chance that she sees a glint of metal in the dying sunlight.  It is a coincidence that her fading eyesight is clearer in the moment than it has been in ten years.  Merely chance that her eye sight was the clearest it had been in ten years.  

However, that isn’t what Nyota thinks about as she tackles Kirk to the ground as the blade aimed for his jugular sinks into the tree behind them.  Her thoughts are much more focused on finding the man who threw the blade.

Until she finds him, and his companion.  Judging the distance between everyone and her and Kirk, Nyota is simply thankful she hasn’t taken off her swords yet.  

“Stay down,” she hisses over Kirk’s head.  She spreads her legs, keeping his body covered with her.  Kirk, half a move away from action, stills and allows Nyota to take control of the situation. 

“Take my left sword,” she whispers, ignoring the horror of letting another man touch her swords, her  blades,  and focusing on what needs to be done before they are both killed.  “I’ll take large one on the left, and you take the other one.”

Kirk nods into her shoulder before placing his right hand on her hip.  His touch is electrifying, but Stania puts that out of her mind.  She doesn’t have time to contemplate anything, not when people are charging  towards her with swords.  Even if their stances are horrific.

Deftly, she grasps her remaining blade and judges the wide, erratic attack pattern the man is taking just before leaping up and leaving Kirk to roll away. The man’s sword to cuts only air and a little dirt.

Standing across from the man, it is easy to tell he’s only a hired gun.  “Who sent you?” she inquires, as politely as one can while holding a sword before a madman.

“I have no need to tell a little slut like you,” he jeers, eyeing her gaping shirt collar in a lecherous manner.  “But I‘d like to have a whore like you in bed.  You’d be so  easy .”

Nyota cocks her head to the side, a snort nearly escaping her.  “Easy?” She hums, twisting the sword loosely in her hand, gaining a slow momentum.  “I’ve never been called easy before.”

With that, she swings her sword to the right, making the man dodge to the left.  She pushes him to the right, making him expect the attack before pulling one of the tiny needles, senbon, out of her hair and throwing it.  It makes a wet  snuck as it pierces his right eye.

He screams, dropping the sword and lifting trembling fingers to the needle. If she is merciful, she would allow it to sink deep enough to reach his brain, thus killing him instantly.  Nyota isn’t in a merciful mood.

Breasts heaving, she spins, plunging her blade into the man’s leg.  He cries out again and falls to the ground.  Nyota tightens her grip on the blade and turns it, reveling in the noise the skin and muscle make as it tears under her precision.

“I am Stania,” she hisses, leaning close to would-be assassin.  “Do you understand just what you have done in attacking me?”  She pauses, watching the man’s face bleed of all color.  “But of course you do.  You’ve heard the stories of Cobel.”

The man whimpers, probably remembering the stories – the woman who had destroyed a din of an unsanctioned weapons runner and hadn’t left a single man alive after it.  

She can see out of the corner of her eye that Kirk has the second man whimpering before him, sword at his throat.  Meanwhile, Sulu, Spock and McCoy are circling the group, weapons in hand.  “Who sent you?” she asks, calmly.

The man mutters something, but she can’t hear it.  And she doesn’t the patience to deal with his blabbering, so she twists the blade again.  She repeats the question over his increasingly frantic screams.

“Nero!” he raggedly shouts.

Nyota doesn’t move, instead she leans forward.  “You have gone against our code.  Our laws.”  And that is all that needs to be said, because the man begins to tug at her skirts, begging for forgiveness.  Something, he probably never gave his victims.

With a clean and quick movement, the man’s head is swiftly detached from the rest of his body.  Blood mars her mask, painting the white porcelain red. It is messy, but necessary.  He broke the rules, and she must enforce them.  Stania cannot allow a traitor go free, as much as Nyota detest killing.  She hates the lust that rises up in her, the thirst for revenge - it does things to her that she never felt before.  Not until she started reveling in it.

She turns her attention to his companion, a younger man.  While she crosses the space to where he is standing, the man flinches and tries to duck away.  Kirk, stone faced, edges his blade closer to the boy.  The companion doesn’t move until Nyota sinks her sword into the ground, but only then  does he shake violently, wide eyed and terror ridden. 

Nyota smiles faintly.  The terrified ones always carry the best stories.  

“Carry this warning to your employer,” she intones.  “Tell Nero that I am coming for his head, and what I will do to him will be a thousand times worse than what he did to mine.”

She pulls back and eases her sword from the ground before speaking again.  “‘Run,” she whispers, sword steady at her side..

The boy runs. Behind him, Nyota stands tall and bloody, and she probably looks like the woman every horror story depicts her as.   

She sighs quietly.  That is one less soul she could, and would, carry on heart when she killed him.

“What the hell was that?” McCoy roars behind her.  Nyota closes her eyes, reminding herself that she  could not harm McCoy, even if she wants to main him a little bit.  A voice box isn’t completely necessary body part for a medic.

Sulu observes her tense posture and speaks instead, saving McCoy’s vocal cords.  “She killed a man who tried to murder the royal highness  Kirk .”  He slurs the name enough to be perceived as an insult, which makes Nyota want to roll her eyes at the childish nature of her student, but she doesn’t.. “She did her duty as a swordmistress contracted to his family.”

“Whose rules?  Barbarians?” the doctor sneers behind her.

Nyota takes in a breath, and before Sulu can rise to the barb, she turns, whipping her cloak in the sudden movement.  She gazes at the three men, silencing them.  Spock doesn’t betray any unease, but there is something about the way his eyes refuse to leave her sword that said enough.  McCoy furiously shakes between anger and relief at her actions, while Kirk stares her like a lion does with a potential mate.

It is like he is seeing her, truly  seeing her, in all her bloody glory.  It is like he finally understands just how much of an asset, just how deadly, she is.  He stares at her, and sees her.  And Nyota doesn’t know if she likes the heavy weight of his gaze or not.  Not yet.  

“I am a swordmistress,” she says flatly.  “I am one of the Seven.  To challenge me is to challenge death.  That man knew from the moment he took on the assignment that either their life or my own was forfeit. ”

McCoy moves to take a step forward, but Kirk places a hand on his shoulder.  The dark headed man stills as Kirk takes the step instead.

Nyota’s eyes track Kirk’s movement carefully, taking note to listen for any rustling of the grass to see if Spock or McCoy would move too.  She could easily be killed if she forgot about the two of them long enough for them to sneak up on her, even if Kirk is clearly the most dangerous of the three.

“What morals?” he asks, a recklessness in his undertone.

Stania grins beneath her mask, much like Eastern sea fish that eats human flesh.  “Outlaws have no one to govern us but ourselves.  To take a job killing someone who is more skilled than you, especially when a vendetta is involved…” She lets the amusement drift into her tone.  “That is particular brand of stupid.”

Kirk is annoyed, because even he can see a distraction when it dances in front of him.  The man wants to discuss the hints she dropped before him, but Nyota has never been one to easily part with secrets.  All Kirk has to do was ask the right question in order to get the answers he wants.

“Who are the Seven?”

And that is close enough to make her flinch.

“The ruling weapons masters of the country.  They set the laws for all bearers of weapons, specifically mercenaries and rogues, and if they are broken, the Seven punish those stupid enough to break them.”

“You said you are one of the Seven,” Kirk muses, watching her intently for any reaction.  “Is that true?”

Stania relaxes a bit.  This was common knowledge among the right circles.  Clearly, they haven’t dug deep enough into the rumors that surround the name of Stania, especially her time using it.  “My Mistress is still living, but I have been given right to act in her steed.”  She brandishes a darkly tattooed arm for them to see.  The ink has a deeper meaning beyond the pretty design.  Only a few knew how to read it, and the men before her are not a part of that few.

Kirk has one last question on his mind, she can tell.  It is on the tip of his lips as he observes her.  There is something about that gaze urging Nyota to stand straighter and hide beneath another mask. She wants to hide herself from him, for some reason.

Maybe , she thinks,  he’ll be the first one to figure it all out.

“Do you know who was the target of this particular attack?” he finally spits out, dragging Nyota back from her contemplations.

She doesn’t, and that is the problem.  Nero knows her weaknesses, and he would exploit it for just the hell of it.  He is not above inflicting pain on other to indirectly cause pain on his intended target.

“I was,” she lies through gritted teeth.  No one calls her on it, so it must have been believable enough.  “Is that all?”

There is movement from the corner of her eye, and Nyota instinctively flinches away.  However, it was only Spock taking a step forward.   “Is that why you wear a mask?”

That is the right question.

“My mask is to keep those I care about safe.  It is also to show my shame for not completing my first vow,” Nyota says, back straight enough that she could feel blood running down her back.  Her wounds have reopened.

Kirk stares at her, intrigued.  “What vow was that?”

“To keep Nero from killing those under my protection.” 

Spock straightens and murmurs the one name that made Nyota actually wince.   Galia.   The assembled men see something in her stance, her weakness, and she hates it.  She is not a weak woman.  There is no time for weakness in death dealing.

“Excuse me,” she inclines her head stiffly, a small measure of respect to the high ranking group before her.  “I have wounds to bind.”

More than just physical ones, Nyota thinks in anguish as she carefully moves away from the trifecta.  Sulu is at her her side in a moment, easing her journey by taking most of her weight.

“You don’t have to,” she whispers barely loud enough for anyone to hear, but somehow he does.

He settles her down on a nearby stump before saying anything else.  “You are my blade mistress,” Sulu returns, his words just as sharp as they were quiet.  “I will do whatever it takes.”

He leaves, going back to their bags to pull out whatever medical supplies he had packed, and Nyota watches him go with a quiet smile.    He is such a quiet man , she thinks fondly.  He is the best man she has ever known, really.  Perhaps the only one who could ever care for the woman she has become.  Nyota isn’t an easy person to care for, even before she hadn’t been, but Hikaru cares.  After all this time, he still looks at her fondly and doesn’t hate her.

Perhaps miracles do happen.  Maybe she has a few coming, after all the tragedies in her life.  

Of their own violation, her eyes rise across the gap between her and the Enterprise three.  McCoy whispers furiously to an attentive Spock, while Kirk…Kirk stares straight at her.

Nyota doesn’t turn away from him; she can’t really.  He is handsomer than he was ten years ago, more angluar than child like, but there was something much more haggard about is appearance.  This man wasn’t the Jim she had sworn to protect at age eight, he wasn’t the boy who had waited for her after her swords pratice and prattled until she smiled even though it hurt her broken face, and he most definitely isn’t the boy who she fell in love with.

Kirk isn’t Jim, but then again, he is.  He moves with the same ease.  His smile is still as sunny as it once was.  Kirk has shades of Jim hidden in him, and it’s just enough to make her heart ache in a way it hasn’t since she completed her training.  

She looks at him, eyeing her with such suspicion and curiosity and wants to rip off her mask and whisper, how much she has done for him.  How much she misses him.  

There are so many things she wants to do, but instead she does nothing, because saying something, doing something, will mean in the end she will have to break Kirk’s ideals, his beliefs, and maybe even a bit of his heart.  Because she would have to explain why she never came back.

And after all this time of protecting him, Nyota just can’t bring herself to hurt him.

Some of her internal conflict must bleed into her eyes, because Kirk averts his, staring steadily over his shoulder.  It would make Stania feel victorious or smug because she won the war of wills.  But all Nyota can feel is a bone weary tiredness that eats at the last of her energy.

She is so,  so  tired of all of this: the blood lust, the fighting,  all  of it.

“Goddamnit,” a familiar voice huffs near her ear.  “How damned long has your back been shredded?”

Nyota doesn’t enjoy the involuntary shudder her body gives into as McCoy’s fingers brush against the reopened wound.  “Long enough,” she replies in a steely tone.  “Are you going to help or judge me?”

McCoy’s hands still on her back for a brief moment.  “Are you hurt anywhere else?”  His tone is professional, lacking his usual caustic bite.  And Nyota doesn’t know what to make of the sudden change.

“Just my arm,” she says, carefully pulling her top away with a slight wince.  McCoy hisses at her from behind, and she stops moving.  Instead, the medic begins to cut away at the fabric of her shirt as she holds the fabric of her cloak to her front, attempting at modesty.

It is a truly ill planned attempt.  Nyota knows that the moment Sulu takes a place in front of her in order to block her nearly naked form from sight.  She nearly smiles at the protective move before McCoy began to slather on a herb mixture.  

Softly, under her breath and to keep from distracting the man stitching her up, she begins to murmur verbs in any language she knows.  She begins with Vulcan, the one she is most familiar with, and catalogues the verbs in all their tense forms, before moving onto Romulan, then Orion, and she continues until McCoy finishes stitching and wrapping her various wounds.

The medic eases her into her cloak, fumbling with the latch at her throat before abruptly leaving her.  He hurries towards Kirk, who is eyeing the man warily.  From her place, Nyota can hear the angry tone of McCoy but she doesn’t move any closer to hear.  It is not her place, especially when the man just sewed her up.  She may be a killer, but she is killer with manners.  

Nyota tilts towards Sulu.  His eyes trace her stance, gazing carefully for any instance of pain.  A tight shake of her head helps, but not enough to ease the guilt from his eyes.  

“Hikaru,” she murmurs.  “Stop worrying.  I am a big girl.”

He bites back quickly.  “Some times, I think you are younger than me.”

Nyota smiles, even though he doesn’t see it. “A lady never tells her age.  However, I am taller than you, so I do believe that makes me a ‘big girl’ in at least three different cultures.”

Sulu scowls because Nyota is right, and the worry from his face disappears.  She chalks it up to a win, even if he does stomp away to grab some food, but makes sure to sit close enough to her to be within range to block any attack when they finally eat after McCoy stabs Kirk with a needle of antibiotics.  

Nyota calms with his close presence, reminding herself that he is still there, and that Sulu wouldn’t leave like Galia had.  He is stronger, she has trained him, unlike Galia who wanted peace when she had only ever seen blood and war and been used as a sex toy for Nero’s band of Romulans.  

He would be fine.

Spock watches her with careful consideration for the rest of the night, she notices as she lays out her bed role.  He has first watch, so she isn’t disconcerted by the fact that he is gazing in her direction.  It is more like the meaning behind the stare made her skin itch.  It is like he is evaluating her character, figuring out if she is a good enough person to trust Kirk with,

She doesn’t stop her movements, making them economical in order to preserve her flagging strength.  Nyota is unwilling to show anymore weakness.  She is loathed to show any more emotions.  Because becoming emotional is the best way to get killed.  Three years in a desert with T’Pau as her mistress is enough to teach even a human like Nyota the necessity of hiding ones feelings.

“You are an enigma,” McCoy says, after he settles on the ground near her.  He ignores the glare from Sulu, and Nyota doesn’t comment.  “I do not understand your motivations for doing this, or even helping us, but thank you.”

Nyota doesn’t glance at him.  “I have my own agenda, and this contract helps further it.  That is all.”

“Still,” he returns.  “Thank you.”

She turns away.  His grudging admiration makes her stomach roll dangerously, and instead she concentrates on regaining her strength.

She falls into an uneasy sleep, dreaming of the stormy blue eyes, but when Nyota wakes up, she doesn’t remember dreaming at all.   


  
The next day, they set out in the predawn light.  Nyota keeps to herself, aching and throbbing from her back wounds.  Sulu stays close to her, and the three do not comment on their behavior.  

Even through the pain, Nyota sees how close she is to becoming truly blind.  Kirk is only ten feet ahead of her, but his blue cloak fuzzily blends with the sky, until she can’t tell where he begins and the sky ends.  If McCoy can’t fix her sight, Nyota will be a blind bladeswoman. 

And that is a handicap she cannot allow herself to be saddled with, because that means years of retraining her senses and movements, and Nyota doesn’t have that time.  Not when she is going to right Nero in three short weeks.

After a few hours of riding, they stop right outside the village of Enterprise.  They easily slipped through patrols, which means one of two things: Nero is getting sloppy, or he knows all about this.  Nyota doesn’t put the second option far from her mind, because this is  Nero .  Spies are always a good option when it comes to him.

Kirk tugs on the reigns of his horse, until the mare stops.  The rest do the same.  McCoy wrestles with his pack until he pulls a grounded herb from it and tosses it to Nyota.  She eyes it for a moment before carefully pouring the concoction into her water pouch and chugging it.

It takes a moment, but soon after the pain begins to dim to a more manageable level.  She lifts her eyes to the man eyeing her and nods silently.  It is as much of a thank you as she can come up with at the moment.

Of course , she thinks, watching Kirk pull something out of his bag.   That would be when the cuffs would come out.

“I thought you wanted our help,” Sulu voices, echoing her thoughts exactly.  His customary glare darkens. Shirtless and he can still look menacing.  If nothing else, Nyota thinks that may be why she accepted him as her student.

“It is a necessary action,” Spock says, watching them carefully, taking the second set from Kirk.

When Nyota finally speaks, she stares straight at Kirk, eyebrows raised under her mask.  “Kinky,” she murmurs low in her throat, observing his lips twitch, ever so slightly.

“I thought you’d like them,” he returns, urging his mare to slip closer to hers.  His eyes never leave hers.

First, she takes every weapon off her body and hands it to McCoy along with the bag carrying her extra artillery.  She holds out her wrist, and Sulu mirrors her action, a disgruntled look on his face, but he still does it.  No one speaks as Kirk slips the conjoined metal arm bands over her wrist, the cool metal sending a shiver down her back.  

Out of the corner of her eye, Nyota can see Sulu getting the same treatment from Spock, still looking pissed off.  She nearly laughs, but her breath is caught from Kirk’s attention.  He never glances away from her face as he places them on.  He eyes her for a long moment after clicking the lock.  Nyota doesn’t know what he’s looking for in her, some last shreds of humanity, maybe.  Instead she tilts her head and murmurs, “If you wanted me in cuffs, Kirk, you could have just asked.”

“We both know I don’t even have to ask,” he returns, taking her horses reigns and beginning their journey again.

She doesn’t say anything.  Instead, the swordsmistress just watches the scenery move past her, knowing that she is getting closer to the end and too many secrets she had long left behind.  Nyota had left behind her, so many people.  Maybe too many people, she thinks, staring at the unadorned fabric covering Kirk’s back.  

Maybe she shouldn’t have gone along with the plan. She shouldn’t have kept everything a secret.  Because secrets had a tendency to come up and stab one in the back.  And what she had shroud her life in qualified as one of those secrets.

A few minutes later, they reach the gate.  Nyota tilts her head down far enough that her hood covers her every feature, even the mask.  McCoy catches the movement out of the corner of his eye and raises an eyebrow in her direction.  She doesn’t react, huddling closer within herself as Kirk speaks with the guards for a while.

They only receive a few interested glances, before the gates creak open.  But that is only the beginning,

Nyota begins to hum to herself, childhood songs, in various languages as she avoids the curious stares and whispers of the villagers.  Being in Enterprise brings back to many memories, too many failures.  Too much of everything, really.  She doesn’t want to see any familiar faces.  She doesn’t want to know what grief she has caused them as well.  Kirk’s face is enough.

It breaks her heart, because Nyota cares too much.  She always has, and now she has to shroud her heart with solid ice to keep from getting too close again.  It never ends well.  

Because the last person she had let in, before Hikaru, her precious precocious, Hikaru, had been Galia.  And Galia had been too independent, too vibrant, to ever try and protect herself.  She had used her position as a slave girl to gather information on Nero’s operations.  They had been so close when Nero had found out and killed her.

Then, Nyota knew that getting close to anyone meant their death.  Because that’s all that followed her now, death and despair.

They travel for another ten minutes, and she watches the ground as they travel, muddy dirt becoming rich green grass.  A residence, she can already tell, before looking up when they stop.

However, when she does look up, Nyota can’t even hide the low gasp that escapes her lips.  The manor before her, because it is too large to be called a house, is sprawling.  Old oak trees kept the entire entrance from view, but enough is visible for her to note that it hasn’t changed in ten years.  It’s still as magnificent as before.

Kirk throws his leg off the horse, hitting the ground with a low thud.  The others do the same, and she’s about to swing her right leg off the horse and leap off, when Kirk’s hands settle on her waist.  Silently, he helps her off, keeping his grip secure on her hips.  Nyota tries not to notice the buzz gets from being this close to him.  Instead, she inclines her head to him, refusing to thank him, and he watches her challenge.  There is a humorless smile on his lips before turning on his heel away from her, and the rest of their party.

She stands still, unsure if she is to follow him, pretend prisoner or not, she must keep up the façade.  Spock and McCoy lead Sulu away, and she stands there, next to the horses with the wind rushing through her hair, unsure and feeling like the teenager she hasn’t been in years.

Kirk stops, suddenly, and turns to her, as if wondering why she isn’t following him.  Something hardens in her gut, and Nyota follows, biting back harsh words when she finally falls into step behind him.  Now is not the time for angry words, not when she is so close to having her vision fixed. 

She would still her tongue, if only for that.

Kirk leads her into a back way, slipping past servants and corridors before stopping at a closed door.  “Wait here,” he tells her, before slipping through it.  

She stands there, annoyed. To calm herself, Nyota goes through the many ways she can kill someone with the daggers, throwing stars and senbon on her person.  It’s, not surprisingly, a large amount.  She’s just cataloguing the many places she can stick a sebon to torture someone – ideally, Kirk – when the man in question steps out the door.

“Come in,” he states before disappearing behind the door himself.

I will not kill my employer , she thinks furiously, before entering after him.

The room is well decorated in shades of blue and gold.  A few pieces of furniture are placed around the room, and the windows are shut.  The only source of light comes from a few candles on a low table where a woman sits, watching her with a gaze that reminds her of Kirk’s stormy gaze.

“This,” Kirk says, a quirk of his lips as he gazes at her emotionless mask.  “This is my honorable mother, the Lady Kirk.”

Nyota bows as well as she can with shackles around her wrists.  It’s a perfunctory bow, not deep enough to be reverent, but not shallow enough to be mocking.  An amused expression flirts across the lady’s face before it’s gone again, perfectly mild.  

The woman, who is really more of a doll than a woman, stands from her place where she had been sitting on the ground.  Her smile is one of perfect welcoming, that Stania does not like.  But she does not like much about this situation.  

She dislikes being barely armed in a place is unfamiliar with, she dislikes the blandness in Lady Kirks expression, and she dislikes being in Enterprise most of all.  Yes, there is much she dislikes like about this, but what she does like...Nyota does not know.

“Jim,” the Lady says.  “You must take off her cuffs.  We are employing her, not enslaving the poor woman.”

Nyota twists her wrists in what would look complicated manner, which truly isn’t, before slipping the shackles off before Kirk can even touch them.  His eyebrow kicks up, and she lets her eyes slide over him.  “I let you keep your illusion,” she says, before turning her attention back to the lady.

The woman, dressed in a voluminous navy gown, continues to watch them.  Her make-up is perfect, and not a strand of hair out of place.  Stania meets her gaze evenly, not even flinching when Kirk adds.  “For all intents and purposes, the Lady Kirk is your employer.  That should buy us time if anyone begins snooping around.”

Nyota hums deep in her throat before gazing back at the table.  “There are only two places set for tea,” she notes, before turning her attention to the lady.

“Jim was just leaving,” Lady Kirk says easily.  “I would like a little while to get to know the latest person in my employ.”

Kirk bows to his mother, painfully formal, but then the politics within the Kirk House has never invited emotions, even within their own family.  He doesn’t look in Nyota’s direction as he takes his leave of the room, but she watches his exit carefully.

She doesn’t know what Lady Kirk wanted with her.  She has no connections to the woman.

“Sit,” Lady Kirk commands in a quiet tone.  Nothing about the woman before her is terrifying, but there was an intensity in her eyes that reminded Nyota of Amanda.  The woman who wears a kind smile and has a gentle hand but could kill you before you could even  think  she is more than a pretty face.  Winona Kirk is a dangerous woman.

A powerful one too, Nyota adds, as she settles into a seated position before the low table, eyeing the spread of tea items before her. The antiques hammer into the blade woman just how out of her depth she truly is.  Straightening her back, Nyota attempts to create the façade of comfortable and easy. 

“I once heard,” Lady Kirk says, lifting a first teapot and pouring the boiling water over the older, clay pot. “That you were trained under the previous swordmistress of the Seven.  Is that true?”

Nyota inclines her head.  “Yes, my Lady,” she demurs.  She watches the graceful movements, entranced.  The lady moves deliberately and never falteres over the complicated steps of the ceremony.

The Lady nods, opening the older pot, and placing tea leaves in the bottom before taking a third, younger pot, and pours hot water into the ancient clay.  “T’Pau still resides in Vulcan, is that not true?” the other continues, placing the lid on the pot just in time to look across at the suddenly stiffer Nyota.

“I do not know the woman you speak of,” Nyota tightly returns, grasping her fingers in her lap.  She wishes, somewhat desperately for a blade, needle, anything really, to fill her hands and the sudden vulnerability eating at her insides.

Lady Winona waves Stania’s rudeness away.  “You were not the first woman T’Pau trained.  Merely the only one good enough to become her successor.”

Only the barest movement of her head betray Nyota’s immense shock.  She had known there had been two before her, but Lady Kirk had never,  never , crossed her mind in the few times she had idly mused on the topic.  “You trained under T’Pau,” she gapes.

Turing her wrist over, Lady Winona pushes back the heavy folds of fabric to show a small, Vulcan styled four tattooed onto the skin.  It is the number of T’Pau’s place in the Seven.  Her three trainees all carry the mark: Winona, Amanda, and Nyota.  

It had been inscribed on the skin as the last part of the training process, an acknowledgement that the student had become a master in their own right.  Also, it was to help take the place of their mistress incase she, or the heir, died.  The positions of the Seven judges always had to be filled.

However, out of the three, only Nyota carries the name of Stania, the name T’Pau gifted her when she handed over the enforcement side of her position to the young human.

“ Goddess ,” Stania breathes, finally losing all her composure.  “I never knew.”

The woman across from her tilts her head away to hide her smile as she moved to grasp the oldest teapot.  She pours the freshly brewed tea into two cups before placing it back on the tray with a small flourish.  “We are meant to stay hidden, except for the successor. You are the one to keep a higher profile.”

She eyes the mask, a tilt of her lips giving away her interest, and Nyota suddenly understood everything.  

She knows , Nyota think, terrified and furious.  She sucks in a deep breath, careful not to say anything or allow her body language to give away a minute detail of her previous persona.  But it is already too late.   It’s always too late.

In the calm manner that Lady Kirk does everything in her life, she says simply, “Hello Nyota.”

“You  know ?” she queries, her voice breaking on the second word as she watches the woman across from her lift her tea cup.

Lady Kirk smiles behind her tea.  “Of course.  I may be dressed as a doll, but my brains are far from lacking.  The timing was too convenient, and Pike’s initial reports told much about your style.  Double swords have always been your trademark,  ax’nav .”

Twisting her fingers in her lap, Nyota bites back a sob at the familiar Vulcan word.  Instead, she tears the mask from her face, hooking it on her waist and peers at the woman across from her. “Who else knows?”

The older woman gazes at her seriously. “No one.  I have said nothing, but I do believe Spock suspects.  He’s heard tales about you from his mother, and Jim speaks about you frequently.”

“ Goddess ,” she murmurs again, desperately trying to regain control on her emotions.  But it has been too long coming.  It has been too long since she had been able to sit with someone who  knew,  and someone she could trust.  Someone who understands all the dimensions of the situation she is entangled in. “I cannot let anyone else know, Lady Kirk.”

Lady Kirk places her mug down, and supposes, “Call me Winona.  We are  il , sister of the same teacher, are we not?” The Lady reaches over and tightly gripes Nyota’s fingers where she had placed them on the table sometime before. 

Nyota opens her mouth before closing it again, staring at the fingers laced in hers.  She didn’t know how to ask the questions she didn’t have answers to – hadn’t allowed herself to have the answers to.  She doesn’t even know if she wanted the answers that she would end up hearing.  They could be too painful in the end.  There has been so much pain over the years and such little joy.  

Finally, she pushes the words past her reluctance and fright.  “Do you know how my family is?”

Winona squeezes the hand held in hers.  “Your father died shortly after you died, saving another man’s life.  Your mother is still living, and all your sisters try to welcome her into their homes, but she refuses to leave your family home.  I believe she waits for you to finally return.  She swore she would never believe you were dead until someone brought home your body.”

Nyota smiles warmly, remembering her mother’s sun worn figure from working in the garden, the fights they had had about her apprenticing to be a Guardian, and the kiss on her forehead the last day before she had left for mission that had been extended ten years.  Thoughts of her father tears at her a little, never getting to hear his laughter as he hugged her, never seeing his weathered face again. She has missed  so much .

“And?” she prompts when Winona pauses for a moment.

The other woman nods to a small picture on the wall, carefully hidden from view.  It holds a picture of the teenage versions of herself, Kirk and McCoy.  Kirk is in the center, Nyota is closely tucked at his side and McCoy has a gangly arm slung across them both.  Their smiles are so easy and young, and they look  so  happy.  They  were  so happy, Nyota amends.  

“Leonard threw himself into his work, graduating early from his apprenticeship and intent finding antidotes to Nero’s increasing number poisons.  He married, briefly, to a woman named Jocelyn from a neighboring village.  It didn’t last very long, but they do have a daughter, Joanna Nyota.”

Her breath catches, and Nyota can’t breathe as she thinks about a little girl with McCoy’s dark hair and eyes. She can just imagine what Leonard, the young boy who grouched often but just as easily grinned, would be like with his daughter.   Little Joanna would be the only girl he would ever smile for.   “But why? Why name his child after me?”

Winona smiles gently at her. “Because you are one of his dearest friends, Nyota.”

Was , she thinks sternly.  She had been his friend before Nero had killed her.  Amanda had said she had had to revive her twice while she simultaneously bled out from a stomach wound and Nero’s pet posion shut down her organs.

Nyota, the smiling little girl wearing the red, had died a long time ago.  And all that was left was a bitter, angry shell of a woman.  She, under the name Stania, had done horrible things.  She had slaughtered so many people.  She had twisted herself into a shade of that girl, destroying everything she touched.  Now, she had no need to destroy anyone else besides herself.  No one else besides Nero.

“Jim –” Winona begins, before the younger woman ripped her hands away from the lady, flinching at the name.  

“Don’t tell me about him,” Nyota whispers desperately.  “Don’t tell me, because I  cannot  know.”

The knowledge won’t help help, she already know this.  She’s always thirsty for knowledge of his life.  She wants to know everything that has passed in the past ten years, every smile, every frown, all of it.  But thinking about the cocky teen she had known –  her  Jim – hurts more than she can ever bear to stand.  

Instead, she rises.  Winona’s eyes trail after her as she walks to a window and gazes outside.  Guards pass by periodically, but Kirk stands in the middle of the yard, working in tandem with a curly haired boy who can’t be more than seventeen. The young man eases through most of the movements and Kirk only has to correct his stance a few times.  Sulu stands to the side, watching the style intently.  And maybe eyeing the boy more intently than he needs too.

Nyota’s face eases.  It’s nice, seeing the beginning of something new, something that isn’t born of blood and death.  Something pure, something she can’t destroy.  Nyota knows she can’t destroy love.  In ten years, that’s the only thing she doesn’t rot from her touch.

“I found out something over the years,” she murmurs, just loud enough for the Lady to hear.  “I found that even the memory of happiness will break you in two if you think about it too much.  So, I locked it all away in a deep dark corner of my mind.  I locked it away because just remembering their faces - his face - could bring me to my knees.  And this woman I have become, this death dealer, she doesn’t have time for it.”

“And now?” Winona says, her gaze heavy on Nyota’s back as she watched Kirk - no Jim, because that is Jim’s unrestrained cocky grin on his face - laugh.

“It makes me want to weep, rip the heavens in two and ask the Goddess  why me . Why did I have to do this?  Why I did I have to lose everything for this man’s vendetta? Why am I the only one who can stand up to him?”

“You already know the answer to that,” Winona responds softly.  “We all know.”

Nyota’s lips twist into a mockery of a smile.  “Because I decided it wouldn’t be Jim’s place.  Because he had already lost his father to Nero’s vendetta, and I wouldn’t allow him to loose his life as well.”

She unties the mask from her waist and reties it.  She dips into a smooth curtsy as she turns back to the older woman. “Excuse me, my Lady.  I must prepare for the upcoming days.”

Winona inclines her head, eyes clear and stance straight as Nyota exits the room.  But her broken words trailed behind her, haunting the swordmistress’ every step.  

“Don’t die Nyota.  Don’t break his heart again.”

Nyota doesn’t turn around to correct her.  They both know what she is thinking, and Nyota thinks they both hate it.  Because she doesn’t just break people’s hearts.  She cuts them out and watches the light fade from their eyes as she does it.  She may not cry, she may not scream, but just because she doesn’t react doesn’t mean the process doesn’t hurt like hell.

  
Outside the small room, three men stand waiting for her.  If Nyota was a woman easily frightened, the red-clad, imposing figures would terrify her.  Instead, she closes comes to a halt and wryly says, “Let me guess, you’re my babysitters.”

The first of the men,  Cupcake , she names him silently, grunts.  “We are to take you to Medic McCoy.”

This isn’t Nyota’s first round with being contracted with a wealthy family.  She knows the protocols and that always means she has at least one, usually five in her experience, though, babysitters.  They play bully and make sure she doesn’t interact with many people, especially innocents, and they also make sure she doesn’t go into a bloodthirsty rage and kill anyone because she is bored.

She tilts her head to the side.  “Then lead the way,  sir .”  She doesn’t hide the sneer in her tone, and a vein on Cupcake’s forehead bulges.  Nyota’s shoulders tremble a bit as he spins around, furious and humiliated, before taking the lead.  The other two follow behind her, and they all watch her movements carefully, like she is going to go on a sudden killing spree.  If Nyota wasn’t so proud of her reputation, she’d be insulted.  Instead, she just smiles.  

No one says anything when they leave the Kirk house, but Nyota knows the way, even if the paths have changed a little over the past ten years. There isn’t much of a difference between the village she never came back to ten yeas ago and what it looks like now.  The children aren’t as free.  They don’t laugh loudly, and frightened women peer from behind curtains at the group passing by.  

Nyota knows if she veered off to the right and sprinted for ten yards, she would be right outside the Uhura Compound.  The area of town that held most of her family.  The place where her sisters would be raiding their children, her mother would still be gardening, and where her father was buried.

Maybe she would even have a plot beside her father.  Her bodiless grave.

She longs,  longs , to take off.  To dart down the path and skim the gate, just to see her family once more.  She hasn’t had the need, to the want, for a long time, maybe even before her disappearance.  Probably, when she actually thinks about it.  She remembers her mother’s bitter arguments against her youngest becoming a guardian.  Her peace loving mother hadn’t liked the idea since Nyota was eight and had mentioned it one day.  

Her clan, however, had jumped at the chance to align themselves to the Kirks.  Having a daughter as a guardian would place them in high rank with the ruling family and allow the Uhura’s a political power they hadn’t ever had before.  And maybe, just maybe, some of the elders had plotted, they could make a permanent alliance between the Uhuras and the Kirks with a marriage.  After all, many had whispered while eyeing Nyota (and she had heard every word, and hated them for saying it), the boy’s father had married his guardian, Winona, and looked at what power she held now.

That was what Nyota had been pushed to become, the next Winona Kirk.  A furious woman who had lost her husband and been pushed into a position as a perfect figurehead, without any power.

Maybe , she thinks, crossing a square towards the building that holds all the medics,  maybe that is why I sacrificed herself for Jim.  Because she had seen what it was like to be left behind by someone you cared about, and she didn’t want to ever be left in that position.  And Jim was reckless enough that he would go into something, like fighting Nero, half cocked and get himself killed, if he didn’t have the devil’s luck on his side.

She sighs.  Maybe that is why she became the devil.  If only to keep Kirk alive for a little while longer, even if that meant sacrificing herself from him.

Cupcake grunts again, and Nyota stills.  Her hand instinctively goes to her waist, where she has no sword.  She lets it drop, even though every guard eyes her movement with suspicion.  Like she’ll create a sword from thin air.  Sher is a swordmistress, not a wizard.  And if they existed outside of children’s fables, would she even be standing here before them?

“We’re here,” Cupcake says.  Nyota eyes the door before her with suspicion before ducking into it gracefully.  The men’s footsteps linger for a moment, allowing her to eye the table curiously, before a barking voice sends them scampering.  Ah, there is McCoy.

The doors swings open, before slamming shut.  Nyota continues to look out the open window for a while, wondering if this is the last time she will ever be able to see the crisp green leaves of a tree in the spring or if all she will ever see is the same old  blurry green  until she can’t see anymore at all.\

“Well,” McCoy snipes.  “Get on the table already.”  

It’s easy to lift herself onto the table, so Nyota takes the time to rearrange her skirts, carefully making sure not to watch McCoy as he bustles around the room, muttering to himself.  She quietly sits, trying to ease the nervousness that eats at her stomach.

“How is your back?” he asks, and Nyota has to bring her head up too met his gaze.  It’s even, and she doesn’t flinch when assuring him that it is fine.  McCoy lifts up her shirt, checking the wound before re-bandaging it with some words about how it should be fine in a few days as long as she kept applying the herbs he was supplying her with.

She doesn’t saying anything as  McCoy lifts her face and frowns at the mask.  She waits until he comments on it, because she can’t help herself.  All she wants to do is hope that this will work, that she will be whole once again, but Nyota doesn’t have the luck to hope.  She doesn’t have the chance.  Because this was it.  All or nothing.  This was it.

“Do you plan on continuing to keep your identity a secret?” The medic tilts an eyebrow upwards as he taps on her mask.  However, the irritable twist of his mouth counters his calm.  

Winona’s words ring in her ears, reminding Nyota that she doesn’t have to be alone anymore. She can - and should -  tell others.  However, she doesn’t have a choice when it comes to McCoy – she has to tell him if she wants her eyesight back.

“No matter what, you will fulfill your end of the bargain, correct?”

McCoy growls  low in his throat.  “Do you think that we would have gone through all the trouble of finding you - a  ghost ,” he glares.  “If I wasn’t going to fulfill my deal?  That is one of the stupidest questions I have ever been asked, and I hear a lot of stupid questions considering I deal with the introductory class of apprentices each year.”

Nyota lets the laugh fall past her lips, humorless.  “I need to make sure, medic.  You are loyal to your village and Kirk, so I have every right to question you.  I do not know how you intend to heal me, or if you are merely luring me here to discover my identity and kill those I care about.”

The lines around McCoy’s lips soften, just a small bit.  “I am a medic, and I adhear to my code.  I heal, not harm.”

“Do you swear?”

“Why?” McCoy states, his voice rising with restrained anger.  “Why should it matter so much that I keep my silence, when that is what I am called to do as a medic.  I do my job better than anyone, and it means more to me than anything.  That  should  be enough.”

“More than Kirk?” Stania returns blandly.  McCoy flinches.  “I know you care for him like a brother.  Anything that could help him is something you would tell him.  This is one of those things you must keep from Kirk.  Even if you think it could help him in some misguided belief of caring, it will only hurt in the end, and I do not want to be the cause of that because it could, and will, get me killed.  I do not want to be killed because you want to save your friend from himself.”

He stares her in the eye, curious.  “Alright. I swear upon my honor as a medic to keep my silence.”

Nyota watches the medic for a long moment, measuring the man before her and the one she remembers.  She can still see that barely adult man in the planes of McCoy’s face.  Barely, but she sees the Leonard she had known and loved.  She can believe in him.  She really can.

She has to.

Carefully, she reaches behind her ponytail and slowly unties the ribbon that secures the mask.  Still, the fitted porcelain clings to her skin, so she closes her eyes, shifting it until it comes free.  She keeps her eyes closed until the mask is completely removed from her face.  

That, however, doesn’t mean she can’t hear the quick intake of breath across from her.  She opens her eyes, taking in the long moment of blurriness before her vision cleared.  Only then does she see the slack jawed look on McCoy’s face – Leonard’s -  face.

“Nyota?” he breathes, taking a halting step closer to her.  “Nyota, is that you?”

The hand holding the mask dropped to her side, and she smiles softly without replying.

Leonard doesn’t care.  He crosses the space between them and wraps his arms around her tightly.  Nyota doesn’t move, keeping her arms at her side, uncomfortable and tense.  Her old friend doesn’t seem to care.

He pulls after a long moment.  “Goddess, Nyota,” he says.  “Have you been alive all this time?”

“Yes,” she returns simply.

“But Jim –” he begins, and Nyota stiffens once again.  

“I  know ,” she states, quickly.  “I know you want tell him Leonard, but you  can’t .  If you ever cared about me, Leo, you won’t say a word..”

Her friend is silent for a long moment, before settling back into his professional face.  She knows he doesn’t approve, few people do, but he will keep his mouth shut because he loved - loves - her like a sister once upon a time.   He won’t tell Jim , she tells her fluttering heart, ignoring the stab of disappointment that hits her suddenly.

Jim will never know that she’s alive.  Never.

She blinks when Leonard begins to tap at the skin around her eyes.  An unhappy crinkle in his forehead mars his expression of perfect concentration, and Nyota hates that she put it there.  She hates the man that gave his daughter  her  name is furious at her.

“I missed you too,” she whispers, and a smile dawns on his features suddenly.

Leonard still smiles like a he did as a child.  It’s small and filled with an so much joy that Nyota is breathless.  Faintly, she wishes she still smiled like the most important decision she had ever made was what she wanted for dinner.  

Nyota wishes she still smiled like she once did.  

“Okay,” he says finally.  “ Okay .”

And really, nothing more needs to be said.  Because his touch isn’t impersonal anymore.  It’s familiar and friendly and everything she has missed over ten years.  It’s better than she remembered or dreamed about because it’s her  friend , real and alive and knowing it’s her.

Her lips barely tilt upwards as Leonard continues her examination, but there is a faint smile on his lips as he questions her.  Like  so when did you get this poison  (ten years ago),  what remedies have you used (eye drops from Romulus, eye masks from Vulcan, herbs from all over the world,  everything ),  how bad is your vision (she couldn’t see the details of his face, it was merely a tan blob blending into the white walls behind him), and so much more.

He keeps questioning her, always needing another answers, more details to expand upon until her voice grows hoarse.  All the while, he reaches for more herbs, crushing them in a bowl he uses, sniffing all the while, grimacing and muttering before ordering her to describe something else.

“Close your eyes,” he says suddenly after hours of interrogation, and she does.  A heavy, wet fabric is spread across her eyes.  It smells bitter and more like animal urination than anything else.  Still, Nyota bites her lip, and stills under the warm fabric.

Her ears pick up movement as Leonard hurries back and forth mixing something, a liquid of sorts if the sloshing is to be accounted for.  He mutters things like  gotta check for the second part, the goddamn bastard liked to a second hidden effect in his poison and  fuck,  her eyes , the bastard .

Then he’s suddenly at her side, and Nyota barely has a second to ready herself as he wipes the hollow between her forearm and bicep before jamming a needle into it.  She curses loudly, in various tongues. “What in the Goddesses’ name was  that ?” she bites out between curses.  

“The first part of the antidote little Miss ‘I-wasn’t-really-dead-but-I-never-told-anyone-that’,” Leonard snarks back.  

He peels back the fabric over her eyes, warning her to keep them open as he drops some liquid into them.  It burns, and she hisses in shock.  Leonard replaces the fabric with another one, all the while, fussing loudly.

“That was quick,” she whispers after a few minutes, making sure to keep the fabric on her eyes.  “How...?”  She can’t find the words to say anything, because she doesn’t know what to say, because Leonard  knows,  and she’s getting her eyesight back.

He places a comfortable hand on her arm.  “Spock brought a blood sample eight months ago.  Said his mother had gotten it from you.  We knew an antidote would make Stania, you, accept our little proposition.”

“ Amanda ,” Nyota hisses, nails biting into her palms, remembering the woman saying she wanted to make sure the merchant’s swordsman hadn’t used any poison on her as she took the blood sample.  Annoyed but vaguely comforted, she had allowed it.  Amanda is her  il , sister through T’Pau’s training, and she trusts the woman.

Throwing her thoughts aside, Nyota focuses on the important information.  “How long were you planning this? How long were you searching for me?”

He pauses, checking her heart rate, before saying anything.  “Since your friend’s, Galia, death,” he admits.  “We knew Nero had ordered her death, and we knew you wouldn’t take it well.  Rumors had already been flying, and we need your help to take Nero down.”

He sighs before continuing, “But it took over a year to get before the Council, and then they turned us down, so we had to go searching for financing between ourselves.  By then, Sulu had become a constant at your side, but we couldn’t find your place between jobs.  That took us another seven months, and another three to find the right moment to bring you in.”

Nyota feels her head begin to pound.  Three years – they had been planning this for at least three years.  Looking for her, getting support, finding a cause to bring her over.  Three  years .

“If I wasn’t exhausted, in pain, and in the middle of treatment,” Nyota says in a low voice, anger bubbling beneath it.  “I would reach to my thigh, take a dagger and send it through your windpipe, McCoy.   Three years , Goddess save me.”

He moves away, chuckling as he goes.  “And I would have a scalpel at your throat before your get even reach the dagger holder at your thigh, girly.  But you forgot, you don’t have any weapons on you currently.”

Nyota leans against the wall and begins to laugh.  It is high pitched, hysterical at the edges, but it is the only relief she can indulge in right now.  She doesn’t have any blades on her person, and she wouldn’t handle them even if she did.  Nyota knows better than to handle anything sharp when her emotions are out of control.

Three years.  Three years ago when she had been floundering, taking on every suicidal mission until she collapsed in that small village, passed out from a combination of blood loss and exhaustion.  Three years ago, Nyota would have welcomed a chance, any chance, to get back to Enterprise and remind herself why she had started this trial in the first place.

Three years.  Goddess  damn  them.  They are three years too late.  It ‘s been three years, and now she is determined, broken around the edges, and already a dead woman walking.

“Close your eyes,” Leonard says after a bit, pulling the fabric away again.  Nyota does, and he wraps gauze around her eyes.  

“Keep the gauze on, don’t get it wet, and in the morning we’ll take it off and you should be able to see properly,” he orders somewhere before her.  “Someone is here to take you back to the Kirk grounds where you are being housed in the meantime.”

Nyota’s fingers fumble as she tried to find her mask.  “Where is my mask?” she asks, panic tinting her voice.  She can’t find it, and no one else could know. Leonard knows, Winona knows, and Spock suspects – those three were enough to make her fidget.

He steps away, before sliding the cool porcelain into her hand.  “It’s here, Nyota.  It’s right here.”

Her fingers still, and the panic rising in her chest eased as she places the mask back on.  It bulges in the wrong places, but it covers her face well enough.  “Alright,” she says, none of her previous panic betrayed in the calm. “Where is the person leading me back?”

The door creaks open, and someone enters the room.  The steps are light, so a warrior, but the fabric rustling as he – and it was a he, his footsteps gave him away – moves is heavy, not worn often, but pricey enough that only a few could afford it.  Rich and a warrior – she can think of only one name.

“Kirk?” Nyota queries, reaching towards where he stops, the place where she hears the slightest change in the air, like someone is breathing in and out.

A calloused hand slips around her arm, brushing on the silk of her clothing.  “Yes,” he returns, curiosity blatant in his voice.  

“Okay,” she acquiesces.  “Thank you Doctor.”

Leonard mutters something behind her, and Kirk says a scandalized “ Bones! ”.  Nyota has to smile because it reminds her of the old days so much that it physically hurts.  

Kirk begins to lead her out of the room, but Nyota stays for a moment, turning to the clinking of activity in a corner.  “I would have said yes anyway.”

Her old friend doesn’t say anything for a while.  “I know now,” he returns.  “I  know .”

Then, she lets Kirk lead her away.  They are silent for a long time, and she can feel his curious stare on her, until Nyota can’t stand it any longer.  “Your footsteps and the fabric of the cloak you are wearing,” she replies to his unasked question.  “Only a few could afford that, and only one who knows I am here.”

“Is there a reason your companion doesn’t wear a shirt?” Kirk asks suddenly, guiding her away from a swell of voices – a crowd ahead most likely.  

She laughs lightly.  “He is rather fond of tanning,” she teases.  Kirk grunts beside her, and she relents in telling him the truth.  “They restrict his movements when he fights, and we both decided that it was better he didn’t wear one.  At least I get a good show every day.”

The arm hooked in hers tenses, and she straightens at the subtle move.   “I thought Master-Student relationships were discouraged,” he says.

“Oh?” she hums, relaxing a bit.  “Jealous are you?”

“No,” he bites back.  “Not at all.”

“Just because I saved your life, that doesn’t mean I have to be by your side for all eternity Kirk,” she pats his arm.  “I’m more of the love and leave them type.”

Kirk pulls her to the right, suddenly enough that she stumbles a bit.  He steadies her before saying anything.  “I would think you’d be the type to never love at all.”

“I’ve loved,” she returns, suddenly angry at the assumption.  “I’ve lost too much because I’ve cared.”

“Galia?” he questions, and this time, it is her turn to stiffen.  

She stops, pulling Kirk back with her when he attempts to step forward.  Nyota waits until he turns, facing her and breath fanning across her mask, before she hisses, “What do you know about her?”

“That she was killed by Nero, and she was close to you,” Kirk promptly returns, a clear challenge in his tone.  

Oh , she thinks, he was fishing, and I walked right into it.  Goddess damn him.

She shifts until her free hand wraps around his bicep, fisting the fabric there.  “She was a slave girl under Nero’s regime.  He had captured her family and killed all the men, using the women as household slaves.  His men had taken to using the women as whores.  Nero didn’t care, but Galia…Galia wanted out.”

She remembers Galia’s bright green skin and determined eyes the night they met.  Galia had known who she was, what Nyota did, and for once, the swordsmistress had met someone who wasn’t afraid of her.  Someone who embraced who she had become - all of it.  She remembers so much that her heart feels like it is going to burst apart again, even after all the years.

“She spied on him, giving me schematics, information, everything and anything.  We were working on a way to get her out when he caught on to what she was doing.  He killed her for that.  Tortured her for long hours and then cut off her head and sent it to me in a box.  It even had a Goddess damned  bow  on it.”

“It went berserk for a while,” she admits, remembering the days where she hadn’t been able to find an end to anger.  The fact that she wanted, no  needed , to kill the men who had killed her....had killed Galia.  

“I killed whoever came in my path.  Only the culpable ones, but I drowned in pain and the never ending guilt from Galia.  I drowned until I nearly died, and only then did I pull back enough to stay alive.”

“Hikaru saved me.  He challenged me, wanting to be my student and pulled me from my daze.  He wanted to learn, wanted to become a better fighter, wanted to solve the world problems.  He is so idealistic.”  Her lips curve into a smile Kirk can’t see.  “He wants to do the best he can and help those in need.  He’s too good to be around me and what I do.  Dealing in death isn’t for him.”

“We’ll give him immunity too,” Kirk says suddenly, close to her ear.  She can feel the heat of his body at her side, and a sudden curl of lust strikes her by surprise.  Surprise enough that she nearly recoiles from the man beside her.  “We’ll let you both live here, helping us keep the peace and have a nice life.”

She chuckles.  “You think I want to be caged in by four walls after the years I’ve spent roaming?  Do you think that I could want such a thing after having such freedom?”

“I find it nice,” he counters, evenly.  “To have a home to come back to.”

“I haven’t had a home in over ten years,” she returns.  “I don’t even know how to  do  domesticated.”

His body shakes, from silent laughter she guesses.  She leanes a little more against him, the drugs finally beginning to kick into her system.  “No,” he hums, nearly into her hair.  “No, I wouldn’t think you would.”

“I think,” she muses aloud.  “We could have been great friends in another life.  Many would have cowed before us.”

He laughs outright that time.  “Bones gave you the strong stuff I can tell.”  She can hear the smirk in his voice.  “You’re being positively nice.  It’s an interesting side to see, but still not the woman who told me she liked to paint things red.”

“I was trying to scare you away,” she points, feeling warmth spreading through her.  “I don’t like dealing with people who think they are better than others and want me to be some hired killer for no reason.”

“So I had a good reason?” he asks, carefully blank in his statement.

“The best,” she nods.  

They are quiet after that.  When they arrive at her room, in the lower levels of the Kirk house, as far as Nyota can tell, Kirk quietly tells her where everything is before hesitating.  She turns her head curiously in his direction, wishing she could see his expression right now.

“I wish I had met you first,” he says, running his fingers down her mask before walking away.

She staggers inside.  Closing the door securely behind her, she leans against it, trying to regain the breath that had left her lungs the moment Kirk had touched her mask.  Goddess, what had that  been ?

Thinking of his closeness, his heat and scent, Nyota feels a need pool in her gut that she hasn’t felt in over three years.  A need to have a body against hers, moving, panting and filling a want that aches deep within.  It is the first time in years she  wants a man.

Maybe , Nyota thinks,  I am becoming more human and less blood thirst y.  As much as she should fear losing her edge and the manic energy that has gotten her through the past ten years, the idea doesn’t scare her.  Actually, she revels in it.

A laugh bubbles past her lips, and Nyota raises a hand to cover her mouth, hoping to physically stop her mirth.  It doesn’t work, and she throws her head back, shaking, as she laughs.  She laughs and laughs and laughs until tears are streaming down her cheeks, and Nyota doesn’t know if she’s crying ot laughing anymore, so she just lets her shoulders shake and shake until she is calm, thinking,  I  am human.

It shouldn’t come as such a surprise, but it still does.

  


  


  


  


  


  


  


  


  


  


When Nyota wakes the next morning, the room is silent.  She fumbles getting out of the bed, hitting her hip on the edge of the frame.  When looking for her bag, she nearly trips.  But when she finally drags her throbbing body across the room, Nyota actually does fall.   She lands hands down on the floor, carpet grasped tightly between her fingers, and Klingon curses spilling from her lips.

She cannot, cannot, be blind.  Nyota can’t live her life like this.  She can’t fight like this.  She cannot kill Nero like this.  She cannot save Jim without her sight.  She  can’t .

Fisting the fibers in her hands, she bites back the sob in her throat and swallows it.  She cannot let herself get emotional.  Not when she is so, so close to the end.  Not now.

So she breathes in, slowly, remembering the meditation T’Pau taught her in the early days.  The ones when she raged against the world, fought so erratically and stared at objects, just thinking about how many ways she could kill herself with them. Nyota hates remembering those days, the insanity that crawled on the edge of mind, but with them came a lesson.  

The only good death is one you don’t surrender to.

  


  


  


  


  


Kirk arrives to pick her up soon after.  Nyota sits on her bed, awaiting his knock, dressed with her cloak already fastened around her neck and mask in her hands, completely calm.  When the knock echoes around the room, she fastens the mask and answers the door in silence.  Kirk greets her cheerily, but Nyota keeps her mouth shut because beneath the serenity she is projecting is the hysteria, and she has to control it, control herself.  So she keeps her mouth shut as he weaves his arm through hers, leading her back to the medical area.

They walk in silence.  Well, Nyota resolutely tilts her head away from the side Kirk is on and doesn’t speak.  She silently goes through the Betazoid variations of the definition of love while Kirk chatters.  The swordmistress pays no attention to what he is saying, letting the nuances of his voice act as a soothing 

“I liked you better drugged,” he says after they make it into the building.  They twist through the back ways, the scent of sterilized air make it hard to breathe.  

Scowling she doesn’t turn her head.  “And I’d rather you dead,” she lies between her teeth.  They pause, and Kirk opens a door before leading her in.

“Sorry sweetheart,” he says after depositing her beside the metal table.  “I rather like living.”

He leaves abruptly, leaving her to the tender mercies of Leonard. “Did you have to drug me with the happy meds?” she bites out.    

“I could give you another shot of it,” he returns with ease.  “Or we could test your vision.  Whichever you’d like.”

She flexes her grasp on the edges of the table for a moment, praying to the Goddess that it would all end well for once because she has to see.  She has to.  

Leonard waits as Nyota unties her mask, patient and quiet.  She thinks that maybe he understands how frightened she really is as her fingers stumble with the knot.  He leans around her, taking the illusive tie in his hands and undoes it himself.  “Calm down, Ny,” he breathes in her ear.  “It’s all going to be okay.”

“Don’t lie to me now,” she says a little shakily.  Her hand curls around the mask he places in her hands.  “Please don’t lie to me now.”

“I’m not,” he states, calm as she wishes she could be.  “I know this will work”

“Okay,” Nyota returns.  “Okay.”

She traces the lines of the mask in her hands.  The edges, the lips, the nose, the eyeholes.  She traces the parts while muttering out the first translations that come to mind.  Leonard laughs when she begins to recite the first verbs she ever learned in Old English, what had come before Standard nearly a hundred years ago.  

“I remember when you used to go through those while practicing with Jim.  God, he always hated when you would start translating his jeers,” the medic’s voice has a smile in it that is unmistakable, and Nyota feels herself unwind a little.  The hysteria fades a little.

His fingers brush against her hair as Leonard unties the bandages and beginning to unravel the gauze.  “Didn’t you translate it to Klingon and then Jimmy translated it back?” he questions.  

“Yeah,” Nyota says. Leonard keeps unwrapping more and more gauze, so she forces herself to focus on telling the story and not what he is doing. “He translated it back to ‘You bastard son of a bastard man whose mother fucks animals’, and then Lady Kirk entered.  I think she let Pike discipline him.”

“Two weeks of intensive training on diplomacy.  I remember his whining.”

“It wasn’t whining, really,” Nyota returns.  “More like very manly complaints.”

“Taking his side,  really  Ny?”

“No, just quoting him.”

Leonard chuckles.  “True.  Now lean your head forward and keep your eyes shut.”

She nearly stops breathing as she does so.  It takes an eternity to get the last round of bandages off, until the are finally gone.  Nyota squeezes her eyes shut, praying as hard as she could.

“Okay.  Open your eyes.”

Nyota takes a deep breath before she does, and suddenly it’s bright, too bright.  She shuts them again while wincing.  She keeps them closed a moment longer than needed, gathering up her courage again.  When she opens her eyes again, it’s still bright.  Everything is fuzzy, but that starts to settle after a few minutes, and Leonard’s face begins to clear out, and Nyota can count every line of laughter, every beginning wrinkle on his face.

She can see him  perfectly . 

“You’re getting old McCoy,” she says, burying her gratitude in the caustic words.  “What’s next, grey at the temples?”

His face morphs into a scowl, but there is a pleased edge to it.  “Avoid looking into the sun, bright light, and grind these herbs and put them around your eyes in a paste before sleeping for the next two weeks.  Then, all lingering effects from the poison should be gone.”

He hands her a pouch, which she pockets swiftly, a grin lighting her features.  With practiced ease she replaces the mask and listens faintly as the medic grumbles about patients who don’t care that he has spent three months perfecting that cure.  “Go home,” she says instead, “Hug your kid and play with her.”

His head swing in her direction, wide eyed.  “You know about Jo?”

“Joanna Nyota,” she nods, amused.  “Kid’s got to be good to have a name like that.”

McCoy’s face eases, smiling at her.  “Well, her namesake is a little crazy, so good might be a bit too much.”

“Crazy,” she parrots, slipping off the table.  “Keeps the mind going and everyone else guessing.”

With that said she dashes to the open window, free falling with grin and twists until she lands on her feet.  As Nyota runs away, McCoy’s startled yelp and a few people’s curious stares trail behind her. But she doesn’t care one bit.

Because she can  see.

  


  


  


  


  
Nyota doesn’t stop running until she is on the edge of Enterprise, where she and Jim and Leonard used to hide and play.  Not many people know about the small garden near the south wall since it’s on the edge of the Kirk land.  They all use to meet here everyday when they were little.  They would run free and play games and hide secrets in the trees. It had been their playground, and later, their sanctuary from all of the world.

  


  


  


  


Ducking, she marvels at the fact that almost nothing has changed over the years.  The grass is still green, the roses are wild and in bloom, and the willow tree they always sat  under is still there.  Everything is a little taller and maybe a little duller than she remembers, but it’s all still there.

  


  
She runs a hand over the scarred wood.  There are indentations in it, and Nyota smiles.  Her fingers trace the words that Jim had carved years ago.   Leo, Jim and Ny - best friends forever.

  


  
And they had been.  They had been the trio the village looked up to, the ones people saw as the future leaders because Jim was a Kirk, Leonard was a genius at medicine, and she...Nyota had been the best fighter the village had produced in years.

  


  
Jim had had such a weight on his shoulders, he still did really, but Leonard and she had been willing to share it.  Now, she saw that Jim refuses to let Leonard help, not wanting to burden his friend, maybe frightened that Leonard would leave.

  


  
He tries to hard, really.  He always did.

  


  
She leans against the tree and just stares at the field of colors before her, remembering the good and the bad.  Because being in Enterprise made her not want to be the swordmistress Stania, but more like Nyota, the little girl who had grown up here and finally returned home.  Something about this town, these people, broke down the defenses she had built over the years.

  


  
In the end, she’s never been able to cut her ties with them.  But that’s inherently true considering her reason for going after Nero.

  


  


“This is a good place for meditation,” a voice abruptly says over her shoulder.

  


  
Nyota spins on her heel, arm on a branch and ready to climb in an attempt to make a get away.  The trees are dense enough here that she can jump from one to another with the leaves obscuring any sign of her.

  


  
Instead of the robes Nero’s men wear, a Vulcan peers at her, vaguely curious. Nyota relaxes minutely and observes him as well.  He looks like the man Amanda always painted him to be.  Tall, painfully stiff, and hiding all his emotions in his eyes.  They weren’t easily viewed, but Nyota spent enough time in Vulcan that she can perceive just enough.

  


  
“My mother,” Spock begins.  “Once described a dead woman walking to me.  She said ‘look into her eyes and see if there is anything less than a death wish in them’.  She also called you a dead woman walking, but I don’t see a will to die in yours.”

  


  
Nyota smiles, even though the other being can’t see it.  “Your mother has called me many things over the years, Spock.  More than you probably want to know, but I think she knows me best.  She always could see behind my masks.”

  


  
“Why die when you could live?” Spock counters.  His eyebrows furrow slightly, and he looks like Amanda when the older woman wants to call her “illogical”.

  


  
“Sometimes,” Nyota moves her eyes around the garden, reveling in the fact that she can see clearly.  “Sometimes life isn’t enough.  Some times you just want all the pain and the hurt and all the bad things to end.”

  


  


“Those would not end with you.  You would just stop feeling them.”

  


  
Nyota sighs.  “I just want to be selfish, just this once.  I want to be selfish and make it all stop.”

  


  
“Mother always said you were a selfish being,” Spock eases.  “She also said you loved to easily and would never stop getting your heart broken.”

  


  
“Like I said,” Nyota returns.  “Your mother knows me very well.”

  


  
Spock turns from his position gazing at the greenery.  “Then, do not break her heart and die for nothing.  She would never say it, but you are family to her, and she doesn’t like loosing her family.”

  


  
Nyota remembers the stories of the miscarriages, the step-son Sybok she hadn’t heard from in years, and the family who had disowned her when she married outside their expectations.  She remembers the dinners with her and Sarek, the steady hand that had always sewn her up, and the woman who had never abandoned her.  

  


  
“Take me back,” she says instead.

  


  
Spock doesn’t ask where, because he already knows.  Instead, he turns and leads her back to the Kirk house, Nyota trailing behind silently.  He even walks like Amanda, light footed and deceiving.  For a country of pacifists, they know the arts of fighting well.

  


  
Nyota wonders if Amanda taught Spock like she had Sybok, and then stops thinking.  Because Sybok is someone she should not ponder because then she will  wonder and that is bad.  Because Sybok was exiled for a reason, and that is a path she cannot follow.

  


  
But he had once told her, across caught blades, “Death, dear Stania, is not the only answer a solution”.

  


  
Maybe...maybe there is another one for this problem.

  


  


  


  


  


  


For the next two weeks, Nyota spends her time divided between three things.  Training, eating and, sometimes, sleeping.  She has to regain her depth perception, and not a second to lose. They leave for Nero’s land in three days.  There is much to do, and so little time to work in.

  


  
Not many interact with her.  Sulu comes and trains with her, playing their usual games for training, before he disappears with Kirk’s new guardian-in-training, Chekov.  She hates him, rather irrationally.  He’s a young boy, talented and skilled, but he is becoming Kirk’s Guardian, his protector.  

  


  
He is replacing her, and while Nyota knew it was coming, had prepared for it and suspected for a long time, but still it hurts.  It hurts to see her place erased in the world, especially right before her.  This is one of the reasons she never wanted to know about Kirk.  It always hurts too much.

  


  
Sulu finds her for the usual training session, but when she drops from her exercise, Nyota sees the lines around the edge of his eyes and the firm line of his mouth.  Something has happened.

  


  
“Don’t run me through for what I’m about to say,” Sulu begins, eyeing her blade with a wary expression.

  


  
She drops the sword to her side.  “Who sent you?”

  


  
“McCoy.”

  


  
“Well,” Nyota waves in his direction.  “Go ahead, while I’m feeling benevolent.”

  


  
Sulu blanks his expression before repeating McCoy’s order not to strain herself in a bland tone that screams,  I’m only doing this because I’m following chain of command like the good little boy I am .  

  


  
“Done?” she asks.  Sulu nods, once.  “Pick a blade.  You haven’t practiced all day, I bet.”

  


  
He goes to the rack of weapons pulling off a long blade, a wicked grin on his face.  “I always wanted to try this blade,” he said, while she grimaces.  He takes another off the rack, a kaskara, and tosses it at her.  It evens the playing field, making her choose a weapon she hasn’t trained with, especially a broadsword.  Hikaru knows she hates broadswords.   
“I try to keep you away from blades that are horrible, you know,” she returns as he swings the blade, getting a feel for the balance on the weapon.

  


  
Sulu’s return is simple. “You only live once.”

  


  
Not everyone,  she thinks. After all, she was on life number two.  There isn’t a second chance after this one.  There shouldn’t be.

  


  
They move in silence for a while, warming up to their different blades, acquainting themselves to the oddities and simple changes in movements as demanded.  It’s not an awkward silence, just one born of competency and hard work.  It’s comfortable.

  


  
“There are stories told about you,” he begins, and she should have known Sulu would have figured it out by now.  He is smart, her student, and the amount of blatant signals have been floating before him would have allowed a blind man to see who she was.

  


  
She thrust the sword at him before responding.  “They are all vicious, horrible lies.”

  


  
“You were once Kirk’s best friend.”  He parries back.

  


  
She twists, testing her sword’s resistance and Sulu’s defense.  “More truth than lies.”

  


  
“He was in love with you – her.”

  


  
“ Lies ,” she sings, slashing at her opponent.  The blade, while not her standard fare, is rather useful.  It looks decorative, but it’s rather functional.  “He doesn’t love.  He lusts.”

  


  


  


  


Sulu grunts, going through a series of beginners moves, if the familiar swish of his pants were telling the truth.  “I think he loved you.”

  


  


  


  


  


  


She drops, rolling on the ground as she ducks a swing from her imaginary opponent, rushing forward afterwards.  “Don’t tell stories, Hikaru.”

  


  


  


“You have a statue,” he adds, quickly.

  


  
“Lair,” she throws over her shoulder, making a derisive move that distracts Sulu before going towards his gut.  The face she sees in her mind’s eye  as she acts is Nero’s, blood trickling out his mouth and the manic smile on his face dies along with his body.  

  


  


  


  


“Alright,” Sulu shoots back as he dodges her hit.  “That was a lie.  But you have a flower named after you. A crimson rose that Lady Kirk bred and let her youngest name.”   
“That doesn’t mean anything,” she snaps.  Sulu doesn’t stop moving, but he doesn’t say anything else either.  He does, however, lunge forward, and she has to react.

  


  
Silence descends on the room, the swish of fabric in the wind and the sound of air being cut through are the noise audible for the next hour.  Nyota is annoyed, wishing Hikaru hadn’t brought up the past, left what was dead and buried like that – dead and buried.  

  


  
Anger fuels her movements, making them harsher, rough.  She twists, turns, and fights numerous opponents instead of focusing on Sulu, running through old battles and correcting the moves she did wrong.  The mistakes that have left her with the many scars that now mar her skin.  She moves, fights, and breathes violence, calm in the midst of it.  

  


  
For the first time since she has entered Enterprise, Nyota is truly, truly, calm.  It shouldn’t surprise her that violence and action helps center her, but Nyota wonders if that is truly her reaction or part of the persona of Stania that she has created.

  


  
Sulu weathers her anger with the patience born of experience.  He twists through the moves she’s passed down to him, and Nyota notes, somewhere in the middle of a downwards strike that she needs to have a four tattooed on him, decorated with her own version of the brand like T’Pau did with her.

  


  
He is her heir, her legacy.

  


  
She stops, dropping the sword to her side, and breathing heavily as she watches the man before her.  He dips to the right, kicking that leg up and twists in the air, for a second free of gravity and everything that binds him to this plane of existence.  He grins wildly. 

  


  


Nyota stares for a moment, caught in his smile and excitement and the man Hikaru has become when she wasn’t looking, because she doesn’t know this side of him, but she is so proud and it feels like her heart is going to burst out of her chest just watching him.

  


  
However, gravity claims him once again.  Landing on his feet, Sulu sweeps his left foot, turning and turning until he faces her, and then he stills, stopping for a brief second, before snapping upwards and bowing to her.

  


  
“What would I do without you,” she says, laughter lightening her voice as she leans on her blade.  

  


  
“I think we both remember,” he replies, grin still lighting his face.

  


  
“Are you sure you want to come with me? You are creating a life here. You even have a friend.”

  


  
“I will follow you to the end of the world,” Hikaru swears quietly, reciting the vow he pledged months and months ago.

  


  
Nyota closes her eyes and bows her head.  “Don’t do what I did.  Don’t leave the ones you care about behind.”

  


  
She just hopes he doesn’t make the same mistakes she did.  The same mistakes she regrets every time she looks at the village of Enterprise.  

  


  
Every time she looks at Kirk.

  
After her statement, Chekov enters, eager and excited.  Her student has an easy smile on his face as he sedately follows the other man out.  Nyota moves through her exercises quicker, trying to remember the last time she saw a smile that bright on his face before.

  


  
She can’t.

  


  
Nyota turns faster, trying to work through the guilt of how hard she has worked Hikaru.  But needed to learn how to protect himself at the time, and she had promised that there would be no more after Galia.  No more deaths if she could prevent them.  

  


  
Spinning one last time, she draws to a stop in an attempt to catch her breath.  The sweat has made her body slick, and her clothing sticks awkwardly, but Nyota doesn’t care.  Her eyes focus on the room as her ability to get air into her lungs ease, and standing in the doorway is Kirk.

  


  
He’s clothed in all black, missing anything that identifies him from his house, and Nyota can’t help drag her eyes across his figure.  Kirk, while a jerk of a truly royal order, is a fine looking man, and his eyes are a lovely stormy shade of blue that clutches at her stomach just a little.

  


  
Nyota raises her blade towards him, silently curious to see he response.  Plucking a spiraled blade,  a Katzburge she notes with interest, from the rack on the wall, Kirk crosses the room until he is directly across from her.  They both assume a ready stance, cocky in their respective abilities.

  


  
She flicks a grin under her mask before saying, “First blood?”  

  


  
Kirk nods, taking one heartbeat to move his head, before lunging at her.

  


  
Twisting away, Nyota flicks the blade in the air, testing Kirk.  He doesn’t flinch, pushing for her again.  He likes the heavy handed methods, attacking being the only defense as well as offense, she remarks silently, all the while ducking his sword.  

  


  
She dances from his thrusts, eyeing his guard easily.  They are playing, Nyota notes.  Kirk isn’t taking her seriously.  Something about that angers her, and she bends right, brushing her sword against his side saying,  Stop playing with me.

  


  
His grin is feral.   Make me.

  


  
She throws her kantana in the air, kicking out and catching Kirk in the stomach as he leaps backwards.  Her blade falls back down, and she grabs it in her free right hand, pressing towards Kirk.  He sees her coming, breathing a bit heavier while ducking her attack.  

  


  
She turns, meeting his blade as it comes at her right.  Their blades screech and they both grin across the crossed metal, before pulling back and attacking again.   
Nyota twists and turns and twirls, fabric flying as she tries to get as close as she can to Kirk.  He strong arms her back.  He never relents when she drives forward, until his guard drops the tiniest bit.

  


  
Seeing the opportunity, she lifts her blade high, brushing against the right side of his face before pulling back as his blade swings to catch hers, even through it’s too late now.

  


  
“First blood,” she pants, standing merely two feet away from where Kirk is backed against the wall.  

  


  
He rubs his hand across his cheek, glancing at the bright red blood streak on it.  “Acknowledged,” he returns, burying the blade into the dirt beside him.  He takes another step towards her, war still in his eyes.  He is still ready to attack.  

  


  
“Don’t even think I’m not armed,” she breaths, watching Kirk closely as a few beads of blood ran down his cheek.  The cut was shallow, but she had broken enough that it would bleed a little bit before healing without a scar.  It would be such a shame to mar his pretty face.

  


  
His eyes narrows.  “And don’t think I don’t play dirty,” he returns, reaching out and grabbing her arm.  She moves to twist her wrist from his grip, but he uses the momentum to turn her in order to slam her against the wall.

  


  
The sudden move knocks the air right out of her lungs, because Nyota has won the match, and it is  supposed to be over .  Instead, she has a sweaty James Kirk barely inches away from her face, watching her with eyes that seem more navy than sky blue and filled with things that she can’t say.

  


  
“I see you have a problem with loosing,” she teases, slightly breathless, watching the storm brew on his face.  “Not very attractive Kirk.”

  


  
He leans closer, his lips barely millimeters from her mask.  “Only when it comes to you,  swordmistress ,” he says, mocking her title.

  


  
She tries to shift, move her wrists, something, but Kirk’s grip is like steel.  “Are you going to keep me waiting,” she challenges.  “Or are you going to do something about this?”

  


  
Kirk’s lips brush against the porcelain. “What do you want me to do?” he asks, closing the gap between their bodies.  Her right knee wedges between his legs, and her left one is half curled around his.  Even her breasts are straining against her binds, brushing against Kirk’s chest every time she takes in a breath.

  


  
“I have a few ideas,” she hums, moving her knee an inch, until it comes into something  hard .  Kirk’s pupils dilate, and she grins.  “You?”

  


  
Kirk returns her beam, wildly.  “Two or three,” he returns, releasing one of her arms and trailing those fingers down it.  She shivers as his fingers dip and skate over her skin, up her neck, and to the bottom of her mask.  “I just want this mask off your face first.”

  


  
She almost says something like  I’ll break everyone of your fingers if you even touch it , even though she knows it would come out more like  oh Goddess, yes.   She almost does.  

  


  
Until someone, hesitantly, clears their voice from behind Kirk.

  


  
He could let her go, but instead, keeps Nyota in place as he turns his head, golden strands of hair softly brushing against her face.  Chekov, the one Sulu has taken a liking to, stands before them, cheeks tinted a brilliant shade of red.  “The Council is demanding to see you,” the younger man says without a hitch.  Kirk, seemingly reluctantly, pushes off the wall, releasing Nyota with a dark look before exiting the training hall.  Chekov lingers, anxiously, waiting for the doors to shut before turning back to her.  

  


  
“Hikau told me that you would want to know the reason for the meeting,” Chekov states softly, still blushing.  

  


  
She leans, boneless, against the wall, eyeing the man before her.  “Yes?” she returns.

  


  
“It’s about you.”

  


  


  


  


  


  


When she slips into the room, through an open window no less, Nyota prowls silently until she finds a quiet corner and settles herself in the shadows.

  


  
There is a raised audience of chairs, filled with old men and women who look around the room with varying degrees of disgust.  Before them sits Sovereign Samuel Kirk, head of state and head of the council.  His mother sits to the side, a benevolent expression calmly presented on her face, while the Regent Lord Commander, Pike, stands between them and rounding out the group is a dark headed woman at his side.  She eyes the entire assembly disdainfully, like she would rather be out on the field than standing in a room with some old wind bags.

  


  
But before all that, sits Jim Kirk.  His posture is horrific, legs askew, spine slumped, and a wild grin on his lips as he unnervingly stares at the collection of people before him.  His entire stance screams,  fuck you , and Nyota grins manically herself at the scene as she leans back to watch, vaguely curious.

  


  
A fraction in the corner, centered around a man with a large nose and rather pompous expression, are arguing.  She doesn’t have the time to read their lips before Sovereign Kirk calls the meeting to order.  

  


  
“Archer,” Samuel waves in the direction of the haughty man with a tired movement.  “You called for this meeting, so get on with it so I can get back to running the village instead of mediating your little rivalries.”

  


  
There are some titters, and Nyota eyes the older Kirk with new eyes.  There are circles under his eyes, and the line of his mouth is frustrated.  His wife recently had her second child, she remembers.  And the war is wearing on him in the worst ways possible, evident by graying hair on the still-young man.

  


  
“My Lords, Ladies,” Archer stands before his peers.  The way his eyes linger on Lady Kirk’s placid face a little bit longer than necessary makes her smother a snort.  Winona eats men like him for lunch. “I am here, along with my peers, to accuse the future Lord Commander of going against our wishes, your wishes, and employing that… mercenary .”

  


  
He stumbles over the last word, like he wants to say something else.  Nyota’s heard it all – demoness, whore, death dealer – but his attempt at restraint makes her lips curl still.  

  


  
Kirk yawns, before turning his attention to the accusation.  “Who are we talking about again?

  


  
“That woman, the  swordmistress .”

  


  
“I know too many women to narrow it down with only that description.”  Laughter echoes through the room, because he does, really.  Kirk’s the playboy of the family, and he’s using that reputation to his advantage.

  


  
“ Stania ,” Archer sneers, finally.

  


  
“Oh, her,” Jim shrugs nonchalantly.  “Actually she’s not employed by the village.  Just under the Kirk family.”

  


  
Archer seems to have found his footing however, running with this.  “You went around our back.  We told you the village would never ally with her and you ran off to do just that.”

  


  
“Actually,” Kirk corrects, eyes glinting.  “She is an ally of the family – not Enterprise.  Just because we’re Kirks doesn’t mean everything we do is connected to the village.  After all, she could just be here to drink tea with Mom and work on my sword skills.”

  


  
In more than one way , a woman near Nyota whispers before laughing with her group.

  


  
Archer looks triumphant.  “So you admit you went against our backs.”

  


  
“To get someone employed at the Kirk household, but you don’t have control over who I employee in my own house, Archer.”  Kirk eyes the man before him coolly, a seriousness easing into his expression.

  


  
Archer turns all attention to Samuel.  “ See , he disrespects you and your family, along with the Council and the village!  You cannot allow her to stay.”

  


  
Samuel’s brow furrows before he turns to Kirk.  “Jim…” he begins, but Nyota steps in.  She does not like this Archer man, nor does she like where this is going.  Especially when it involves her.

  


  
“It isn’t nice to speak about people behind their backs,” she utters, loud enough to be heard over the small whispers here and there.  All and any movement stops at her words.

  


  
Stepping out of the shadows, she watches as eyes around the room widen, except for Winona’s.  The lady inclines her head, a wisp of a smile on her lips.  Kirk doesn’t move either.  His lips curl into a delighted smirk as he relaxes further into his chair.

  


  
It is silent as she moves around the room, like a predator eyeing its prey.  Archer valiantly tries to look stoic, but the trembling of his knees give him away.  “Nobleman Archer,” she says, stopping behind Kirk’s chair, fingers curling around the top of the frame.  “Do you have an issue with my presence in the village?”

  


  
The man opens his mouth, with no words coming out, before stumbling to speak again.  “You,” he cried.  “You have no right to be here!”

  


  
“The window was open,” she returns.  “I took that as invitation enough.”

  


  
He flounders, terrified of the woman before him, Nyota can easily tell.  Especially with a woman who does not bow or scrape before him.  He does not know how to deal with her and that terrifies him.  She terrifies him.  Nyota grins.

  


  
“You were not invited into the village,” Archer attempts.  “We did not allow you to stay here.”

  


  
“ Wrong ,” she calls, insincerity in her tone.  “Lady Kirk has been kind enough to invite me into her house while I was treated for a malady.”   
All eyes turn to the older woman smiling disarmingly at them.  “She needed housing,” Winona offers innocently.  “Who am I to turn a sweet young girl out into the  cold?”

  


  


  


Heads begin to bob at the logic.  But Archer will have nothing of it.  “Now you can leave,” he responses, slightly panicked.  “You have received your treatment, now you can  go .”

  


  
Nyota steps away from the chair, and the tense man in it.  “I am not some prostitute you can throw out after you’ve ridden her,” she whispers harshly.  It’s loud enough for everyone to hear, but the chill in it has everyone straining away in their seats.  “I came for treatment and owe the Kirk’s a favor for their hospitality.  What I do once I leave this village, whether it be in connection or not to your future Lord Commander, you have no say in.”

  


  
“We should execute you for your crimes,” he roars, finally getting to the heart of the issue. “You are a  murderer !”

  


  
Easing her stance, she returns his accusations.  “And you are not?” she hisses, thinking of where she’s heard his name before and remembers T’Pau’s sad face while speaking of how far her dear friend’s family has fallen over the years.  “You think your hands are clean?  You who had a nephew who sold young girls into the same trade you use to slander my name?”

  


  
She sneers at the crowd before her, at their shocked and disgusted expressions.  “You all carry your sins, and while you hide them behind your robes and your money, they are still there.  I see them and I know them  because you are not as good of liars as you think you are.  You are disgusting, fat pigs, who send those poorer than yourself to fight a war you are too afraid to end.”

  


  
“I know what I have done, and I acknowledge who I am, but do not think that I am soft for doing so.  I can slaughter  every single one of you  before anyone could get to that back door.”

  


  
The room is silent for a long, long, time, before Samuel, calmly impressed, utters, “ Finally .”

  


  
Chaos descends, and easily, Nyota eases back into the shadows, watching as Archer has to defend himself from his colleagues.  The subject is no longer on her, and it will stay that way.  Archer will lose his title and respect, descending into poverty like the fool deserves.

  


  
Her job here is done.  

  


  
Swiftly, she exits the room, through the door this time, feeling eyes follow her every movement.  She doesn’t even have to question who it could.  She knows it’s Kirk.

  


  
It’s always Kirk.

  


  


  


  


  


  


  
When she exits her shower, Nyota barely remembers to put on a mask before exiting the shower, covered in only a towel.

In her room, Jim Kirk sits perfectly still.  He perches on the stood before the vanity watching her through the mirror before him.  Nyota makes no move to cover herself, the gold towel barely covering tops of her beasts and settles around her upper thighs.

She doesn’t stop, doesn’t want Kirk to know his presence irks her in a manner that she still cannot interpret. There is something about the way he studies her in the mirror as he watches her move.  Something dark and heavy.  Something that pulls at her gut, something that makes her  want .

Nyota does not have time to want.  She barely has time to breathe in between her duties and vows.  She must keep those under her power in line, she must destroy Nero, she must save Kirk.

She barely has time to be herself.

She doesn’t turn away from Kirk’s gaze as she drops the towel.  His eyes trace her figure as she loosely drapes a robe over it.  Hiding some of the swirling tattoos from sight, but barely covering her long legs and the power that is written in every line of her body.

“What do you want Kirk?” she asks, finally.

“No quick retort?” he returns, a smile on his lips. “I would expect something about being a pervert from  you .”

She’s weary, tired of pushing with an end never in sight, and now that it is…Nyota is tired.  She has been tired a long time, but now she is exhausted.

“Kirk,” she says lowly.  “Say what you need to say and get out.”

Kirk’s smile dims as she takes in her stance and the way her mask is barely tied on.  “Expecting someone?” 

Nyota scoffs.  “I do not need a bed partner every night, unlike some other people in this room.”

“I don’t  need a bed partner,” he drawls.  “I just  like one.”

Turning, Nyota goes for one of her swords, because Kirk  will not leave , only to have his hand wrap around her wrist.  “You don’t need that,” he whispers, breath fanning the back of her neck.  

“Give me one reason not to break your wrist,” she returns, voice calm even though she feel the heat of his body inches from hers.  

Kirk tightens his grasp on her wrist before tracing the skin of her neck with his free hand.  She does not move, she does not twitch, as Kirk raises goose bumps.  She withstands it, as bored as she can pretend to be, until he replaces his hand with his mouth, hot and heavy against the junction of her shoulder and neck.

The moan is unintentional; a loss of control, but Kirk is biting, licking and  worshiping her skin in a way that no man has done to her before. He is acting like she is worth more than a quick fuck.

Nyota hasn’t been treated like that…ever.

“That reason enough?” Kirk chuckles, pulling away for a second and she has to blink to bring herself back from just  feeling .

Nyota turns her head, meeting his dark gaze with her own lust filled one.  “Fuck you Kirk,” she hisses.

“I hope you do,” he returns, gazing at her mask.  “What would you do if I removed your mask?”

“Kill you,” she answers, watching him warily.

He pulls close, eyeing the place where her lips are hidden.  “Thought so,” he murmurs.  With his free hand, he pushes the mask up, just enough, that her lips are bared.  Nyota doesn’t move.

“I’m not dead yet,” Kirk says.  

“ Yet ,” Nyota utters a second before she pushes forward and devours Kirk’s mouth.  Because that is the only thing it can be called.  She clutches the back of his head, grasping it tightly as she keeps his lips on his.  They both fight for dominance of the kiss, nipping at each other, battling tongues.  Neither will give in.

But it’s an explosion, fireworks, and the best adrenaline rush of her life, all mixed into one giant moment that washes over Nyota unlike anything she’s ever experienced before.

And suddenly air is a huge necessity.

They pull back, panting and staring at each other’s swollen lips and flushed cheeks.  “Bed,” she says, more of an order than a suggestion.  Kirk lifts her up, and Nyota wraps her legs around his waist, settling her center against the bulge in his pants and watches as he goes a little breathless when she rocks her hips.

Grinning, she tosses her hair to the side, clearing her vision and begins to bite her way down Kirk’s neck as he walks them to the bed.  He grunts, sitting down on the edge and works his hands into her billowing robe, hot on her body.

She hums into the marks she’s branding onto her body.  Nyota, before and after Nero, has always been possessive of what is hers, and if she could, she would brand her mark on Kirk’s soul.  Because this, whatever this is, is more than just sex.  They are connected, two souls tied together for all eternity.

Why else would she give up everything to watch him attempt to forget her?  She did it because Kirk – Jim – means more to her than anything.  His life, his happiness, is something she would, she did, die for.

And she would do it again in a heartbeat, if only to see him smile.

It is then that Kirk takes her right nipple in his mouth, massaging the left one with his hand, and proceeded to suck.  Nyota lost all coherent thought about then.  He licks and nips and swirls the bud in his mouth until she is crying out, and then he turns his attention to her other breast, leaving her breathless and shaking when he’s gone.  

He turns, pushing her onto the bed and begins to place kisses on strategic joints.  Kirk teases her, running fingers down her thighs, causing her hips to jerk and her body to hum furiously as he places kisses while driving her mad.  

Nyota, finally tired of the tempting, hooks her right leg around Kirk and shifts  just so.  He doesn’t notice until she rolls right, flipping their positions until she is on top.

Kirk’s eyes dilate, and he stares, wide eyed, up at her.  “You didn’t think I’d play submissive,” she whispers, watching his pupils blow up at her words.

He doesn’t say anything, smart man.  She settles herself on his waist, ignoring the tent in his pants, as she ghosts her fingers down Kirk’s chest.  His nipples instantly harden, and every inch of him seems to strain for her touch.  He brings up a hand to touch her, when she captures it.

“No,” she sings.  “You don’t get to touch.”

Her free hand goes for the tie of her robe, and Kirk easily submits to it being tied up. Easy, in Nyota’s terms, which means she efficiently wraps up his wrists before he can even figure out what is going on.

She rocks back on her knees, and watches Kirk’s face as she lowers herself onto his erection.  He throws his head back, showing her the sweaty column of his throat, and the darkening bruise she’s left of her teeth as he pants heavily.

Nothing about Kirk is small, and Nyota hasn’t had time to regularly have sex over the past few years, so she has to settle for a moment as she deals with being stretched to the point of painful.  But Nyota’s always been fond of pain.

They settle for a moment, her adjusting and Kirk just breathing before she begins to move.  The pace isn’t easy.  Up.  Down.  She rides him hard, nails digging into whatever skin she can grasp onto, and Kirk’s fingers are ironclad on her hips as well.  Up. Down.  She watches as Kirk’s head as he throws it back, keening.  Up.  Down.  She grins harshly, feeling his cock throb.  Up.  Down.

“Fuck,” she breathes out, slamming back down on Kirk, and the world explodes.  Up. She keeps moving because, Kirk isn’t done yet.  Down.  And then he arches up, meeting her halfway and he losses it, a chain that sets her off again as well.

Kirk’s mouth moves to form a word.  A word she easily can read on his lips, a name actually.  She doesn’t know if she should be devastated or overjoyed that the name he whispers is one of a dead woman. 

Instead, she digs her fingernails into his hips, knowing there will be marks tomorrow and bends to capture his lips in a searing kiss.  They both fight for control and at some point, Kirk gets his hands free, because they are suddenly in her hair, pushing her closer, wanting more, needing more until they have to breathe.

They pull back and stare for a little bit, panting as they watch each other take in the necessary air.

“Again?” He asks, right before Nyota is going to say the door is to his right.

Her answer is not verbal.  But Kirk gets it when she wraps her mouth around his cock and teases him with her tongue.  Eventually.

  


  


Nyota opens her eyes the next morning to her mask repositioned, and Kirk lazily tracing her tattoos.  She tenses for a moment before Kirk says, “I didn’t look, you know.”

The bile that had been rising in her throat returns to her stomach.  “I would have never suspected you as one to resist temptation.”

Kirk settles his head on his arm, watching her carefully.  “I respect you enough to not violate your trust.”

“What trust?” Nyota asks, stunned at his assumption.  

His eyes travel the length of her body and the marks he left on her skin.  “I would call letting me stay the night a measure of trust.”

“I would call it a misadvised one night stand.  Lonely people wanting to connect and a few good rounds in the sack.”

“Good,” Kirk smirks.  “Is that a complement swordmistress?”

Nyota pushes the sheets back and gathers her robe from it’s place on the ground.  She turns her back and dresses quickly, oddly vulnerable.  Kirk doesn’t say anything as she crosses the room, heading for the bathroom.

He doesn’t move either, so clearly, she has to say something.  “You can leave now,” she says, carelessly pointing to the door.  “I have no more need of your services.”

“Services?” Kirk laughs.  “I think it was more than that, Miss Stania.”

“No,” Nyota shoots him a cold look.  “It wasn’t more than that.”

He stands, uncaring about his nudity, but Nyota doesn’t divert her eyes.  It is nothing she hasn’t seen before, and she can push the images of his cock thrusting into her from her mind with some effort.  She lengthens her stance, ready to reach into her bathroom drawer for a knife at any moment.

Crossing the room quickly, Kirk plants himself right before her.  His eyes search hers, looking for something.  “I do believe you are wrong.”

“What would you think it would mean?” Nyota returns.  “After all, I could be acting like this because I am contracted for any whim of your family.”

Kirk doesn’t take the bait.  “No,” he murmurs.  “You wouldn’t sell yourself like that, you have too much pride, Miss Stania.  When you act, you have a purpose and a motive.  It all goes towards an end.  I’m just not sure what that end is.”

Nyota breathes in slowly before replying.  “It’s none of your concern.”

“Oh,” Kirk replies, eyes glittering in the early morning light.  “It is entirely of my concern.  It could interfere with the job I have contracted you for.”

She has to bite down the laughter that bubbles in her, because he will not take kindly to being laughed at.  No one of a royal status every does, and Jim never had.  “It won’t, Lord Commander.”

He grimaces at the title.  “I am not Lord Commander yet.”

“Yet you will be,” she counters.  “So whatever could happen between a Lord Commander and a mercenary?”

Kirk lifts a hand to her cheek, and Nyota makes sure not to react.  “Everything,” he whispers.  “Everything.”

“Please leave.”

She barely gets the words past her lips, but Kirk pulls back, an odd smile on his lips as he gathers his clothes.  He dresses quickly, and she watches, detached as he tries to smooth the wrinkles before giving up.  

His hand is on the doorknob before she says, “I need to see a weapon maker.”

He stares at her, for a moment.  “Take a guard with you.”

Kirk leaves and she stares at the door for a long time, confused, before setting aside her emotions and him and dressing for another day of training.  There are only two days left.

  
The room is just as cluttered as it was during her last visit, two years ago.  The wears are well displayed and the craftsmanship is undeniable, but the store still does business only on very rare occasions.  It is a well hidden secret in a village known for their diplomacy, before the war.

There is a crash of bottles, and Nyota watches a a man in oil covered white shirt enter from the back. He looks like he hasn’t shaved in days and the bags under his eyes complete the picture of a drunken man in his thirties.  He staggers into the front, waving half heartily.

“Hello,” she says, her mask still in place, but she carefully slides down the hood of her cloak.  She was forced to cover her identity before leaving, the guards still jumpy after her run from the medic tent.  The guard runs a curious eye over the place before returning outside.  

The change in the man before her is instantaneous.  He straightens his spine, tugs at his shirt and eyes Nyota with half curiosity, half righteous anger.  “What are you doing here?” His words are burred with an accent and just as equally furious.

“Hello to you too Scotty.  It’s been a while.  How are you doing?” she idly recites the proper beginnings to a conversation as she wanders the room. 

Scotty still glares at her.  “I’ve been hearing about your capture all week long and now you wander into here with a guard.  What the hell are you up to girly?”

“I’m under contract by the Kirks.”

That stops him.  He stills, turns to her and breathes a nearly silent, “Kirks?”  

Nyota nods easily, picking up a throwing star and testing an edge.  Just as sharp as ever.  “Yes, the Kirks.  I have been contracted to kill Nero.”

Scotty faintly repeats,again, “The Kirks?”

“You know, boys with blonde hair, blue eyes, and basically the royal family of  Enterprise .”

“I know who they are,” he hisses. “Why are you being stupid enough to deal with the House of Kirk?”

Nyota turns to Scotty, throwing star in hand and simply eyes the man.  The look that passed between the two of them needs no words.  They both know why she would trust the Kirk family.  He knows everything, and what he doesn’t know, Scotty’s smart enough to connect the dots and see the big picture.

“You are committing suicide,” Scotty sighs, his anger diminishing.  “You will die doing this.”

She shrugs.  “As long as Nero’s head is on a pike, I don’t care if I’m six week under or not at the end of all of this.”

“What about those you’re going to leave behind? What about me?  That teacher of yours?  Hikaru?”  He eyes her like she’s an untempered piece of metal that he doesn’t know how he’s going to finish yet.  “Don’t you get it girly?  There are still some of us around here who like you.  What are we to do when you’re gone?”

Nyota inclines her head.  “You act as though I haven’t seen people move on from my death before.”

“You think that Kirk boy has moved on, girly?” Scotty asks, honest with no bite in his words.  However, Stania still flinches.  “He’s turned you into a martyr, the real reason for the war.  McCoy’s right there at his side, fighting as hard as he can to keep you alive as well.  They never got over this.  Nyota Uhura isn’t forgotten.  She’s simply hiding behind a mask and waiting in the shadows too afraid to come out and tell everyone she’s alive.”

“Nyota Uhura is dead!” she roars, twisting to face Scotty.  “She died ten years ago, and all that is left is Stania.”

“So why do you flinch?”  

She begins to tremble, feeling a burn in her throat and a warring in her gut.  Her voice, however, is louder than before, nearly screaming.  “I am not that Nyota because that Nyota wouldn’t have wanted this!  She wouldn’t have this blood on her hands!  She wouldn’t be half mad with blood thirst!  Nyota from ten years was good, and I’m… not .”

Her voice breaks on the final word, and Nyota’s ferocity crumples, curling in on herself, and trying to push the emotions back into the box she’s hidden them over the years.  Emotions aren’t something useful in battle, T’Pau taught her that.  While she drapes her emotions around her like a cloak when she isn’t in battle, she still subscribes to her mistress’ methodology when it comes to fighting.  She can’t control her emotions like she can control her body.  She can’t use them to kill people, so she hides them away.

She can’t hide them anymore.

Scotty doesn’t move from his place at the desk.  He simply stays in his spot as she trembles and rocks back and forth between in control and loosing it completely.  Her mask droops, half off her face, as she tries to regain control of herself.  He watches and waits.

She doesn’t make a noise, nor does she cry.  She sits there, shaking furiously, but she doesn’t make a sound.  She wishes she would make a noise, at least then she’d know she was finally finding a release.  However, she doesn’t.

After a good ten minutes, Nyota’s back becomes taut, and she collects herself before rising.  There is a slight tremor in her hand, but Scotty wouldn’t have the heart to call her on it.  Nyota, whichever version she really is, can’t hold herself together.  Not anymore.  Since being around Kirk and his friends, she’s begun to crumble.  

“Losin’ you,” Scotty begins softly.  “That broke him a wee bit.  Actually, it was more than a wee bit.  He threw himself into his duties with a ferocity that frightened his mother.”

Nyota doesn’t say a word.  She closes her eyes and lets the words wash over her.  She hadn’t allowed herself to hear about Kirk - no, Jim.  She hadn’t allowed herself that luxury until now.  And she can’t bring herself to tell Scotty to stop, because she wants to hear the words, she wants to know.  She needs to.

“Her Ladyship tried to allow him time to grieve, but the younger Kirk…he wouldn’t.  He doesn’t party, he doesn’t court anyone – he only trains.  He trains and trains, but he can’t kill Nero and that, in turn, kills him.  McCoy tries, but Kirk…Kirk is going to kill himself for this revenge.  For a woman who isn’t even dead.”

Nyota doesn’t say anything for a long time.  She stands there, with her eyes closed, thinking about the lines that weren’t there around Jim’s eyes before.  The way his lips are always in a small line.  The tight posture he keeps himself in, and the unhappiness in his expression.

Oh  Goddess , forgive her of her sins.  Forgive her of her trespasses upon the others.  Forgive her of anything she has done to Jim.

Forgive her and bless her on this one last mission.

When she finally speaks, her tone is even.  “I need weapons, the highest grade of poison you have, and,” Nyota takes in a deep breath.  “I need a new mask as well.”

He nods, beginning to gather the goods she needs with ease and not saying another word.  “Do you have a preference in the mask?”

She doesn’t say anything, and Scotty doesn’t ask again.  He rummages around for another few moments before coming out with two carefully wrapped packages.  

  


Reaching for the longer of the two, Nyota unravels the silk from the gleaming blade.  Her lips quirk, it was her first sword, refinished since she last had it left with Scotty.  It was her mistress’s blade, handed down to her when she became a mistress in her own right.

It’s a long bastard sword, a blade that can be switched hands easily, but long enough to be reminiscent of a long sword or great sword.  It’s a mixture of blades; she remembers the lesson well enough, not one or the other, but perfect for her.

The grip has been re-fitted for her small palm and long fingers, gold glinting in the light.  An detailed dragon roar silently as her handle, mouth filled with the pommel, a smooth sapphire filling it’s open mouth in an attempt to keep the weight evenly distributed.

It’s gorgeous.  She tells Scotty that softly, watching his lips barely tilt upwards, as he eyes the package beside it.  Taking the cue, Nyota re-wraps the sword carefully before pausing at the second item wrapped in black silk.  She stares at it for a long moment, hesitating before quickly gripping the fabric and unwrapped the mask.

It’s a dark crimson, nearly black, the eye slits are sharp, tilting down at the corners, giving the porcelain a menacing look.  However, that isn’t what catches her attention.  It’s the deliberate white brushstrokes that paint a butterfly across the entire face of the masks.  

Her breath catches as she stares at the artwork.  At the symbol.  It means so much to her.  A butterfly is rebirth, a new beginning.  But it also meant something so much more important.

“This is the Kirk symbol,” she whispers quietly, fingers brushing against the paint almost reverently.

Scotty smiles a half-smile. “You always have belonged to the Kirks.  I thought it appropriate.”

Nyota can’t find it in herself to breathe a word of protest, gripping the mask tightly in her hands, because, by the Goddess, it is true.  She belongs to the Kirks, heart and soul.

She belongs to Jim, and she’s just figured it out – ten years too late.

  


  


  


  


  


  


  


  


  


  


  



	3. Part Two

For the rest of the day she isolates herself, training with the blade.  Remembering the moves she was taught and how to use a bastard sword.  It has been a long time since she had one weigh heavily in her hands, and this one weighs more than she suspected it would.  Though Nyota doesn’t know if it is more of a physical or psychological weight.  

She avoids Jim carefully.  It isn’t as easy as she thought it was because he haunts every corridor she tries to enter.  When Nyota goes to bed that she locks her door, listening careful as footsteps stop outside before beginning again after a long moment.

She doesn’t sleep well after that.

The next day, wives kiss their husbands goodbye children cry, and the last resistance of Enterprise leaves the cities gates, Jim at the head, with Nyota following him a few steps behinds.  She doesn’t meet anyone’s eyes, even though Leonard looks at her from time to time, and Spock watches her carefully as well.  Sulu attaches himself to her side, as Chekov does with Jim.

They set a hard pace, wanting to reach a Vulcan outpost near the edges of Nero’s land where the plans will all be finalised.  Nyota follows, silent and contemplating her fate, and what she wants.

  


  


  


  
  
They meet the Vulcan contingent in the middle lands near mid afternoon.  Sarek stands with the welcoming group and makes eye contact with Nyota first before looking to the others with her.  It is a slight to Jim, and Enterprise, but it tells everyone involved that she is not merely a mercenary and Vulcan will not be pleased if she dies during this attack.  Nyota doesn’t know if she should be thankful or annoyed at the attention granted her by his actions.  She settles on quietly suffering as everyone splits off.  

Spock converses in quiet tones with his father while Jim tells the men to pitch their tents before disappearing into the forest.  Leonard looks after him for a long moment, before pulling Chekov into his service so the young Guardian can’t go after his master.

Nyota must stare into the forest for too long, because Sulu finally says, “Go after him.”

She turns a carefully bored eye his way, “Who?”

Her perpetually shirtless student scoffs.  Nyota has to hide a smile because he has never disrespected her before.  It is a pleasant change to see him growing a backbone when it comes to her, and Nyota thinks it has something to do with the curly haired guardian that she is becoming strangely apathetic to.  “Kirk.  It’s obvious.”

“I have no idea what you are speaking about,” she retorts but never denies the part about Kirk.  

Sulu steps closer to her, emotions darting across his face before he clears them away.  “Talk to him. He needs the person to find him to be  you .”

She stares at the planes of his face, wondering when the teenager who had come to her, asking for her training, had turned into a man.  “You and I both know he doesn’t need me.”

He shakes his head.  “He wants you then.  Don’t you miss being wanted?”

Nyota places her hand on his cheek, curling her fingers around the curve of it.  “I may not have always been the best mistress, but I always needed you, even if I never knew it.”

“Why won’t you think about living?” he whispers.  “What if all I want is to have you safe and sound?”

She smiles a little sadly.  “I have to end this, Hikaru.  This has always been the ending to my story.”

“You told me that there is always something to live for.  What do I need to tell you so you know that there are people depending on you, who want you to survive this encounter?”

He is pleading with her, begging, and that is something he has never done before.  But he is so hopeful, so bright, and Nyota wants to say  yes  so badly. Because she remembers Spock’s speech in Amanda’s place, she remembers Jim’s soft  everything , and she remembers her mother, her sister, and everything she has never allowed herself to do all over the years.

Who wants to die when  they have so much left to do?

Sulu furiously pulls away, taking her silence as an answer that she still doesn’t have.  “Then you are a fool, swordmistress, because you cannot see what is right before your eyes.”

He leaves her, and at a loss of what to do, Nyota turns into the forest and follows the path left behind by Jim.  She finds him, staring out at the hills and slopes before them. His heavy gaze follows the journey that will lead them to Nero, and the end of all of this.  

She watches him, and question after question bubbles in her throat, tearing at her insides and desperate to ask.  Finally, after a few long moments of watching Jim, she does. Because she  has  to know.

“Who was Nyota Uhura to you?”

Jim stares at the barren plains before them.  “Why?” he queries softly.  “Why do you ask?”

Nyota leans forward, her torso nearly bend in half as she stares Kirk in the eye.  “She was something to make you so dedicated to her.  You began the war after she died, so she was something.”

He says nothing, and desperately, Nyota says, “Was she your lover?”

The man before her starts violently at the word ‘lover’.  He turns his gaze upwards at Nyota, shock sliding into a calm.  “She was more than that.”

“ Oh ,” she says, confusion gripping at her.  “She was your ‘better half’ as men like to say.  The only girl your heart will ever hold?”  She doesn’t know why she’s antagonizing Jim, maybe because he’s so easy, or because she has to know what he meant when he said,  everything .

Because they hadn’t been like what he is describing.  At least she had never thought of them like that and being as close as he suggests would mean that they meant more to each other, and Nyota had been so devoted to him back then.  She had been so devoted, but had never, ever, thought he would be to her.

And now, that she is dead and Jim seems to be letting her dead memory go, there is a chance for a future with him.  A chance she knows will be ruined the moment he figures out her real name.  Because she has lied to him for the past ten years by pretending to be dead and she still is today.

Nyota really, really, hates that she hides, hates that she is so emotionally attached, hates that she will never be able to willingly untangle her being from Jim.  Because she doesn’t even know where her needs end and where Jim’s wants begin.

Because she wants to get out of this world.

“She was much more than that,” Jim states.  His voice is calm but his eyes are a stormy sea.   “She was vibrant, alive, and  she should not have died .  I should be the one dead, and she should be here, leading this war because she was better at it.  She was so much better at everything.”

“Are you so sure she want this?” Nyota asks, as she sweeps her arm at the men camping before them.  The last day before the siege.  They all are waiting, for the next morning to bring about either the end of Nero or the end of Enterprise.  “Would she wage a war for you?”

Jim jerks like she’s kicked him.  “I would think so, after all, she died for me.”

She wants to laugh, wants to smile, wants to react to those words, because they are all so true.  She would wage a war for Jim, because she is, and has for the past few years.  She would do it, just like is for her, and that means something.  Means that maybe, maybe, he had been in love with her too.

But what does that mean for Stania, the mercenary he wants everything with?  Is she going to play second string to her past self for the rest of her life?

Nyota pulls close to him, too close really.  She can smell the day’s sweat on him, the hint of grass and something that she can only equate with sunshine. He is still the same man she died for all those years ago.  But she had never wanted  this  for him.  She wanted him to have a happily every after, a loving woman by his side and kids running around his ankles and to see him smile a smile that wasn’t tinged with pain at the edges.  

Will he ever have that?  And is there a chance she can share it with him?  Nyota doesn’t know for sure, but is surprised to figure out that she does.  She wants Jim in her bed and by her side, wants to protect him always, wants blond, blue eyed brats.  She wants it all.

“Would she  want  you to wage a war for her?” she murmurs.

Jim stills.  “I don’t know,” he bites out after a while.  It sounds bitter coming from his mouth.  “I can’t be sure.”

“Why?” she asks, purely curious.

He stares at the men milling before them.  Vulcans and villagers laughing, preparing weapons, drinking, he watches them all with the gaze of a man twice his age.  “I can barely remember her.”

Nyota heart breaks a little at his words, because she had never forgotten a thing about him.  She had remembered his face, the way he had screamed her name as she had taken off towards Nero’s army, the way he had held her hand when they were little, the way his grin would get wide when he was truly happy.

She had remembered every single bit of him, if only to remind herself every day why she did what she did. 

“What do you remember?” she queries in a hoarse whisper.  Her chest is tight with emotion, and there is a part of Nyota wants to pull him close and confess everything.  But she can’t. She can’t do that because he will never let her go again, and she has to be let go in order to do what she must.

She cannot meet Nero with any ties binding her back, because that will get her killed when she wants to be the one live for the first time in years.

“She loved languages,” Jim begins, voice heavy with emotion.  “She loved dancing and singing.  She loved practicing with her swords.  Her eyes were so dark, like the color of chocolate, and every time she laughed, it felt like everything was right in the world.”

He collapses in on himself a little.  “I miss her,” he whispers.  “I miss her so much.  And I wish it had been me.  I never thought she would leave me behind, and now that she has...I’m so lost and alone.”

She watches him grieve silently, unable to do anything because he is grieving her, even though she is right beside him.  She is here and she isn’t, a paradox, and Nyota hates herself for it.  

“She is watching over you,” Nyota says finally, hand extended to help him before she pulls it back because that isn’t her place, not this time.  Swordmistress Stania doesn’t have that right.

“Make her proud,” she states, quietly, trying not to think to hard about why she is doing this, and just who she is attempting to absolve with this – her or Jim.  “I will try to do her justice.”

He turns to her, bright blue eyes wide.  “Why?”

“Because you care,” she honestly replies, fearing that she has said too much.

Jim doesn’t say anything, but something lifts from his shoulders.  He straightens and stares up at the heavens for a moment.  “I will do you proud,” he says to everyone and nobody, before leaving the hill, and Nyota, behind.

She wonders just how differently her life could have been if she had left Vulcan immediately after awaking, instead of saying  Goddess, yes to T’Pau’s offer.  She studies the stars for a long time before turning back to the campsite.

But Nyota has no time to wonder anymore.  

  


  


  


  


  


  


  


Sarek pulls her aside later that day, for a few words.  When Nyota bows her head in respect to him, Sarek simply says, “Straighten, sister of my wife.”

Nyota does.  “I should bow, Sarek of the Clan of Surak.  I should be respectful to those of your family, even if I am familiar with your wife.”

“T’Pau is one of the elders of my tribe,” he counters easily.  “And when I married Amanda, I told her that I would accept any of her family as my own.  You and Winona are the only family she acknowledges today, and as such, I accept you as my sister as well.”

Her breath catches, and Nyota knows he can hear it from the way his eyes soften.  “You are not alone, sister Stania.”

Trembling, she folds her shaking fingers toegther.  “You...” She cannot get the words out before Spock appears at their side, a vaguely smug look on his face.  

“I was not exaggerating before that my mother cares about you,” he says in a voice that screams “I-told-you-so” even for a Vulcan.  

Nyota blinks back the tears before musing aloud, “Does that make you my nephew then, Spock?”

Spock grimaces before telling her that they need to go over the plans for tomorrow.  Nyota is thankful for the mask to keep expressions hidden because she does not think he would agree with the smirk spread across her cheeks.

He and Sarek softly point out the entry points, the way she will break apart from the main group and assassinate Nero as swiftly as quickly before rejoining the main group as they take on the army Nero keeps at his fortress.  She studies the map they have, discuss counter points, but it is short and sweet.

  


  


  


She takes her leave of them and settles in her tent, remembering Jim’s words about her, and wondering if she is still the woman he loved once before, and she can ever become her again.

  


  


  


  


They enter Nero’s land with ease the next day, slipping between patrols at the gate of his giant fortress.  It is too easy, really.  Like he is expecting them. Sulu touches her shoulder when they reach the entrance, wishing her luck but never saying goodbye.  Never saying good bye meant they would meet again. She only hopes it would end that well. They separate, just according to the plan Jim had explained the night before.  The men take the left where the most of the camp is, but she goes right, where Nero’s private war chamber lay.  “Find me after this,” Jim whispers to her as she passes by.  Nyota sends a prayer his way, before drawing her blades and taking off down the halll. There are only three guards between where the separate and Nero’s chamber.  She takes them all with ease, a quick strike to the throat so they can’t yell out, and finds herself after all these years, finally at the one place she had been fighting to get to.  Right outside a room containing Nero. She stops before the ornate doors, just for a moment, because this is it.  One way or another, this is the end. Nyota takes in a deep breath, before pushing the doors open and striding through the front doors.  Her hair streams behind her, the fabric of her cloak whirling – she is the devil herself on Nero’s doorstep.  She grins behind the mask.  Because at the end of this, Nero will finally,  finally , dead. She finds Nero sitting at the head of the table, a sword laying before him on the table.  It’s a broadsword, a sword Nyota is familiar with.  It’s the same sword that gave her the scar across her belly.  It’s the same sword he nearly took her head off with ten years ago.  It’s probably the same sword he used to kill Galia. It’s the sword she’s going to stab him with.  Nyota just knows it. “Hello Nyota,” he grins, wide and manic.  “Or is it Stania now?  I never was good at keeping up with your name changes.” His tone tells her everything.  They’ve been played, and everyone is walking into a trap.  She has to end this now, because she needs to warn the others.  She needs to warn Jim.   Nyota unhooks her cloak, letting it pool at her feet.  “Oh Nero,” she purrs, wrapping her anger and hatred and determination around her to keep her focused, remembering what – and who – all of this is for.  “You never struck me as stupid.  Just insane.” Nero leans back in his chair. “I hear you’re quite insane as well.  Blood thirsty as well.” Her hand lands on the sword at her hip. “I have a specific taste for blood.  I heard yours is  delicious .” “You are so grown up,” he leers, taking in her form fitting skirt, and tight high necked top.  Not an ounce of stray fabric.  Nothing to get in her way as she kills him; tears him to tiny pieces and destroys him.  “You were so young the last time we saw each other face to face, but now, you’re a woman.  I feel like a proud father.” “You are not my father,” Stania replies with ease.  “But, I will agree, I am older and wiser.  Also, I know a hundred ways to kill you and will revel in making you experience every single one.” Nero watches her for a moment, his dark eyes alight.  “You would, wouldn’t you?”  He begins to laugh, suddenly possessed and completely insane. “Oh, you became just who I wanted you to be Nyota, and I am so glad.  Finally, I have an equal in this power play.  If only you could leave behind these little vows of yours.  Come and revel in pure and unadulterated chaos.” Her fingers grip her sword so tightly, Stania swears she begins to bleed.  “Never,” she hisses.  “Never will I allow you to ruin another person’s life.  It ends  now .”  Her left hand inches towards the holster on her waist, towards the daggers she has hidden there.  One shot, that’s all she needs to maim him. To kill him.  One shot. One shot to save Jim and everyone else she cares about. “Oh,” and Nero actually sounds mournful as he says this.  “I had so hoped I could change your mind.  That I could teach you all you needed to take over my empire.”  His expression changes in the blink of an eye, and he is grinning manically.  “But at least I will be the one to kill you.  You utter equal in all ways.” Nyota’s fingers curl around the dagger, and she takes in one last deep breath, thinking about Jim’s face as he mourned her. Of Galia’s sightless eyes, and the last time she had seen her own face, horror filled gaze and weary expression.   Nero grins.  “And you are so much more fun to play with than that little Kirk boy.  I killed his father for his attention, but instead I got you.  I’m grateful for your dedication to the brat, so maybe I’ll kill him quickly.  Just for you.” She throws the dagger straight at Nero’s head. He is already moving when it hits with a quiet  thunk into the wooden head of the chair, but then again, so is she.  Nyota throws three more in the path of his moving figure, pulling the sword from her hip as they miss and meets his blade head on. The metal shrieks loudly, and Nero’s face is too close, close enough to kiss her.  Suddenly she pulls back, darting away with a throwing knife in hand as Nero fell a step forward.  She lets it fly, and smiles as it meets her target with a wet squish. “First blood,” she calls in a sing song voice, leaping up on the long table that was in the center of the room. Nero pulls her knife out, leaving the wound to bleed freely as he jumps behind her on the table.  “But it’s not the last,” he sneers. She thrusts forward, meeting his blade with hers before pulling back, testing his defenses and trying to find the weaknesses in it.  He meets every propelling move solidly, something erratically dancing away.  He has no set defense, but it is strong.   A bead of sweat runs down Nyota’s temple.  Too much depends on this, depends on her, for her to lose this fight.  Then, she is pulling back and going on the defensive as Nero nearly cuts her cheek in an unforeseen move; Nyota shakes that thought from her mind.  It can’t all be for naught. Glancing quickly, out of the corner of her eye at the surrounding room, Nyota notices the door.  The doors lead to the outer area.  A room that is larger than this small corner of Nero’s fortress.  She has to make it out of the room because outside lay allies.  Outside, she has a better chance. With a curse, she ducks another slice in her direction, dancing towards the door.  A senbon is thrown and meet its target in his leg, near a major artery, if the surge of blood could be judged right.  He rips it out, and instead of having it drop to the ground, throes it firmly at her shoulder. The needle hits its mark with barely a grunt on from her lips.  She rips it out as she pulls back through the doors and into the chaos that had been hidden behind them.   Everyone is fighting, but Nyota can’t watch that.  Nero is already barreling towards her, sword swinging wide, clipping her hip, but leaving no major damage.  In response, she jabs him, feeling the air leave his lungs with how close they are. “Now,” she heaves.  “I have to end this.” “Oh sweetheart,” Nero whispers to her. “You never have to end this.  We could go on forever fighting.  People would tell legends about us.” Snarling, Nyota lifts her head towards him with a dark stare. “ Never .  This ends now.” “You keep saying that,” Nero returns, a grin on his face.  “But you can’t seem to do it.  All talk and no bite,  hmm ?” With a roar, she throws herself at him, careless.  He takes her attack with ease.  Clipping her thigh and taking a few strands of hair as she misses wildly. She desperately throws another parry in his direction, her grip loosing in an attempting to twist the blade last minute. Nero meets it solidly and pushs until her sword goes flying. “Damnit,” she hisses, pulling back as quickly as she can, tearing at the daggers on her thigh.  She has been played like a child, and all she has now are daggers.  Damnit, she needs a sword.  She needs a sword right now. Come on Nyota , she furiously thinks, throwing a dagger as a distraction.   Think about what lanes are open to you right now. Where was the sword, and what do I need to do to get there?  It takes one quick glance to find it.  Her sword lays behind Nero, on its side.  She needs to move Nero away from it.  She needs to distract him for just a moment. All she has to do is turn around, pulling close enough and take the senbon from her hair and stab him through the eye, like the assassin in the middle lands.  Nero would drop his sword, and she could grab hers and gut him like a fish.  That’s all she had to do.  She just needs to turn. So she turns, pulling close, and as her fingers go to her hair – to the needle – something cool and hard slides into her gut.   Oh,  she thinks slowly, painfully.   I didn’t see that one coming. Nero’s hand pulls her close, her back to his front and lifted her masked face to his.  “Oh Nyota,” he murmurs, true regret in his eyes.  “I wish it didn’t have to end like this.” With that said, he reaches his fingers around her limp body and tears the mask from her face, uncovering her shame, her  face , to everyone fighting before them.  Spock, Leonard, Hikaru, everyone from the village.  They all see her face as clear as day, considering the stunned gasps that went through the crowd before her. But as the mask falls from her face, and all Nyota could see is Jim’s shocked face.  He stares at her with wide eyes that reminds her of all those forgotten days.  All those years she has missed.  How many more she would miss, because she has a sword in the gut and a gushing wound on her shoulder?  Not many people survive that. Actually, no one survive that. “If I’m going to judged by the Goddess,” Nyota smiles up at Nero, suddenly peaceful, as her fingers wrap around the hilt of the sword in her. “You are coming with me.” With a pained grunt, she rams the blade further into her own body, skewering Nero as well.  Two people stabbed by one sword.  Nero looks surprised, before his expression softens.  “I always knew we’d be together.” She sees the blood suddenly leaking from his mouth and knows,  knows , that she has hit something vital. She grasps the senbon in her fingers, weakly, but still strong enough to finish this, and thrust it into his heart. And just like that, Nero’s chest shutters, and he stops moving.   It is  over . With a painful cry, Stania pulls the blade free, watching as the blood began to gush from the wound.  It is in the exact same place as her scar – Nero has stabbed her in the same place twice. Hysteria bubbles from her lips, just as blood begins to pour from it.  But none of that matters, not really.  Because she has done it. Nyota killed Nero. Looking up at  the battlefield before her is hard, but it is needed.  She needs to see this.  She needs to know it was over.  She  has  to know.   Nero’s men are watching the warriors from Enterprise and Vulcan warily as they put down their weapons, but almost everyone is staring at her, wide eyed.  Everyone except Jim, who is staring at her stomach and the blood gushing from it.  His mouth is moving, but no words were coming out. She tries to make a step forward but stumbles to her knees instead.  “Sorry,” she mouths to Jim as he stands, horrified, while watching as her lifeblood streams from her stomach.  It is pumping out so quickly that her fingers are already covered. She tries to say it again, tries to explain everything, she tries  so hard, but the world turns sideways and she collapses to the floor while screams ring around her. Her vision dims, her voice closing up, pain electrifying her every sense, and she knows she is dying.  Even though she decided that she wanted to live, wanted to try to make it work with Jim even if he hated her for protecting him, she still lays there, alone, and dying.  It’s exactly how she always imagined it. Hearing is the first sense to go completely, she knows, but there is some one’s panicked voice in her ear, and a hand on her stomach.  “Nyota, don’t you  dare  die.  Not when I just found you again you stupid, stubborn girl.  Do not leave me here again, Ny!” And with those words echoing in her head, her chest shutters, and the woman called the swordmistress Stania ceases to breathe.   
  
The darkness never ends, until it finally does. She opens her eyes and sees only fuzzy white outlines.   There is a yellow bob on her right ( Jim? ), but she can’t stay awake long enough to look closer. She closes her eyes to sound of hurried footsteps, beeping, and “ Someone get McCoy in here now!  She’s going into cathartic arrest again! ”

  


  


  


The next time, she awakes, she feel stronger, better.   “Took you long enough,” a slightly relieved, but mostly annoyed, voice says from her left.  She painfully turns her head slightly sideways to see  Leonard standing beside her bed, a wry smile on his face.  She opens her mouth, and the sound that comes out sounds like metal on gravel, rough and horrible.  The medic winces, handing her a small plastic cup with a straw.  “Drink slowly, you’ve been out a while.” Greedily, she drinks what little he allows her.  Her throat feels better, not as dry as it did when she first awoke, even though she never noticed the dryness.  It must be a sensory overload.  She tries to speak again.  “I never liked following the rules,” she says in a low, halting voice. Leonard’s face lightens.  “No,” he agrees.  “You never did.” She opens her mouth again, but he places a finger on her lips.  “Sleep.  You’ve been out for a long time.” Easily, she does.

  


  


It isn’t so bright when she awakes a third time.   Her eyes focus quickly enough to see that McCoy is arguing with someone.  It takes her a moment to discern the face, but it’s clearly a recognizable figure.   Kirk – Jim – stands in her doorway wearing ceremonial robes.  They are the robes of the Lord Commander, and she understands everything.  Regent Pike has, finally, conceded the position of Lord Commander to Jim, and with that position comes knowlege that he hadn’t been previously allowed.  Like every recorded record of Stania’s battles, every rumor, every dirty deed she had even been connected with has been passed over to him.  He knows, and it is his place to serve as her judge, jury and executioner.  That is the duty of every Lord Commander when it comes to rogue villagers, especially ones who used to be in high positions of power, like a former guardian. She doesn’t know how he will rule, if he would even rule in her favor, because there is so much that she has done, so many people she has killed, because she had to stop Nero and save him.  She has done so many bad things, that the only way he can rule is for her death.  There is no other answer.  There is no forgiveness.   There is only death.   The only question is, will it be a lifetime of imprisonment or immediate beheading? As quietly as she can, she shakily gets off the bed.  Her muscles barely hold her up, but someone has left her sword nearby, and the broken woman uses that as a crutch.  The sound of the sword hitting the floor, gains the attention of both men.  McCoy wears a furious expression, ready to throw her back in bed, but she doesn’t care about that.  The one she does care about - Jim - is carefully blank.  He looks every inch impassive as his position demands him to be.   A position she must prostrate herself before.   Because even if she wanted to fight the judgement she already knows is decided upon, she wouldn’t.  This is Jim and she could never, willingly, hurt Jim.  And she would have to in order to get away alive. She would have to wound him deeply, and maybe even Leonard, in order to dart down the hallway and find a way out.  She would have to harm others to make it out of the village, and she is so, so tried of hurting people. Hasn’t there been enough death and destruction caused by her hands? Jim takes a few steps forward, towards her, and she doesn’t know whether it is the lingering exhaustion or intense fear of dying when she truly wants to live, that makes her fall.  In the end, she does, and kneels before Jim – the man who can decide her fate.   “I have returned after ten years, Lord Commander,” she barely whispers.  “I have dispatched of the war lord Nero and posed as a missing ninja while doing so.  None of the actions I have performed during the years can be connected to the name Nyota Uhura or the village of Enterprise.  I have kept my shame separate from the land I love so much.”  She doesn’t say,  from you , but it is a near thing. She wavers, even on her knees, and tightens her grip on the bastard sword in a desperate attempt to say upright.  There are things she must say, traditions she must follow if she wants to avoid an immediate death sentence, and she has to get them right.  Because, even if it’s behind bars, she wants to live. “I am your humble servant, Lord Commander,” she continus, her head bowed to the ground, utterly humble. “Do with me as you wish.” She folds herself until she is face down and curls on the floor before Jim.  Her sword lays beside her, her fingers twist, and her nails bite into her skin as she waits  for something –  anything  to be said.  Anything to be done.  She waits, as a long moment of silence echoing in the small room.   The subservient position she adopts leaves her open to any killing blow.  Someone could cut off her head with a swift strike before she could even have a chance to defend herself.  This is how she could die, so easily broken. And it is all up to him.  The one man she has deceived more than anyone else.  The one man she has done it all for.  Jim has her life in his hands, and she doesn’t know how he will react. Not a sound is made, even while she struggles to fight back tears.  Her wounds have been reopened with her actions, and pain presses into every nerve.  Still, she does not make a sound as she awaits her judgment.  He knows how many people she had killed in an attempt to save her home and loved ones.  She gas given so much for this, but who she has become in the quest could be a liability now.  She is a liability. Goddess , she prays silently to the cold floor.   Take my soul, take your child, your warrior, and forgive me.  Forgive me of my sins, of my wrongs.  Forgive me because it was all for him.  All of it .  Someone clears their throat, and she flinches, waiting to feel the steel that every second.  Then, he speaks. “Nyota Uhura, warrior of Enterprise,” her Lord Commander began in a voice that she isn’t familiar with but still, she doesn’t dare look up.  She doesn’t have that right anymore.  She hasn’y had that right in over ten years. “You have given much for this village.  Ten years of your life has been devoted to this mission and with the completion on this mission, I as Lord Commander, reinstated you as a warrior and member of this village and erase any wrong doing in the completion of this mission.” It is too much.  It is all too much.  He has accepted her into the village, erased her record, and reinstated her.  It is too much and more than she ever dreamed, in the few times she had imagined of coming back.  It is far too much. She shivers on the floor, half in disbelief and half is desperate fear that this is a dream, and she will awake still wearing a mask and a blade at her throat, ready to spill her blood everywhere.   “Thank you,” she breathes shakily on the ground.  She can’t move in fear of her limbs collapsing under her.  Because her sins will not follow her into this life.  Stania isn’t Nyota, and Nyota won’t be punished for Stania’s blood thirst.  Nyota has been cleared. She is, once again, Nyota Uhura.   “Stand, Nyota of the house of Uhura.  Stand warrior of Enterprise,” the Lord Commander says softly.  “Stand as I welcome you.” Carefully, she begins to unfold herself.  It is an easy process, but when she attempts to stand, it is on wavering legs, and she doesn’t look upwards.  She keeps her gaze on the ground, unable to look upwards.  “Look at me,” the Lord Commander whispers, a hand coming to curl under her chin.  Nyota turns her face only slightly upwards, looking at the Lord Commander through her eyelashes.  However, the man looking down at her isn’t the carefully composed Lord Commander, it’s Jim, grinning softly at her. The smile on his face is vibrant, something she hasn’t seen the past weeks she has spent in his company.  His entire face is lit up; his eyes bright and clear for the first time in years. He is calm. He is settled.  Jim is finally the man he is meant to be.   “Welcome home,” he utters before pulling her close.  His robes are plush, and her face easily fits into the side of his neck, like they are two pieces of a puzzle. A finally completed puzzle.  “Welcome home Nyota.” She lets out a quivering breath before wrapping her arms around Jim and clinging tightly to him.  She falls into him, and for the first time in a while, Nyota cries.  She cries for all the people she killed, she cries for the all those she never saved, she cries for Galia, she cries for herself, and how she lost this, Jim, for ten years. Jim simply pulls her closer, murmuring soothing things into her ear, never letting go.  And it is soothing, the room, Jim, all of it.  It is so soothing. Because she is finally,  finally , home.

  


  


  


  


  



	4. Epilogue

Initially, Jim refuses to let Nyota out of his sight, until his mother pulls him aside and reminds him that Nyota Uhura was declared dead ten years ago, and the rumors were flying already, and  Jim you have a duty to uphold.  

“Fuck my duty,” he hisses in the privacy of Bones’ office while he hashes it out with his mother.  “It’s Nyota, and she begged me to kill her because she thought I hated her for trying to save our entire village.  I am not leaving her side.”

Winona’s face softens a little.  “Jim,” she says, placing a hand on his cheek.  “She won’t disappear if you leave her be for a little while.”

“Ten years.”  His voice is raw and broken.  “She was alive for  ten years , trying to kill Nero because she loved me and didn’t want to see me get hurt.  Ten years Mom.  I made her kill people. I made her a mercenary, and how can she ever forgive me?”

“Oh baby,” his mom says, drawing him into her arms, and he goes willingly.  She is warm, and Jim feels like is younger, less responsible and like the worst decision he has is what he wants to wear.  “Jim, she choose her future.  Not you.  The blame never rested on your shoulders.”

“How do you know?” he asks into the collar of her dress.  “How do you know she wasn’t pressured into becoming a mercenary?  You don’t know who trained her.  You don’t know what happened to her during those years.”

She doesn’t say anything, and shock hits his system.  He pulls back and stares at his mother wide eyed.  “You knew,” he breathes.  “You knew the entire time.”

Winona doesn’t deny a thing.

He is furious, angry and utterly pissed.  “Why didn’t you ever tell me?  This was information I needed, considering I started a war based on the fact that Nyota was killed in an unprovoked attack by Nero!”

“It was a necessary war,” she says calmly.  

Jim can’t deal with it anymore and punches a wall.  The plaster cracks and crumbles and his throbs, but Jim doesn’t give a damn.  “Why didn’t you tell me?” he repeats, lowly.

“Because it wasn’t my place,” Winona states simply.  “Nyota decided it would be better if the world thought she was dead, and she was with good people.  My mistress is a good teacher.”

“Your mistress,” Jim parrots faintly. 

Winona’s eyes narrow.  “Yes,  my mistress.  I was your father’s guardian for a number of years, and I was trained by the best.”   
  
He had know his mother had been trained, years and years before he was born, but he hadn’t known, hadn’t suspected, that it was the same woman who had trained Nyota.  He hadn’t known, and considering who he is, that is something.  

“Mom,” he says, voice breaking again.  

She smiles softly.  “Nyota has done everything for you, Jim.  No matter what, she cares enough to wait a little while longer for you.”

He looks at the door, thinking about the woman who had kneeled on the ground, ready for him to kill her.  Jim isn’t sure about that.  But he isn’t sure about much right now.  Nero is dead, and the woman he loved is and the one he was beginning to love is the same.  

Jim is so, so lost.

“Okay,” he eases out.  “I need to wrap up the loose strings with Spock’s dad anyway.  I’ll finish that while she sleeps off the rest of the drugs.”  He pauses, looking back at his mother.  “Will you...”

“I’ve already been asked by another interested party,” Winona assures him.  “Go, Jim.”

He does.

  


  


  


  


  


  
It takes three days to dismantle the entirety of Nero’s empire, even though they have been working on it for the past two weeks previous.  They must decide how to split the lands, dismantle his network of fear, and decide to kill or release his men.

Actually, they don’t actually do the last part.  An ancient looking Vulcan elder enters the room with Amanda Grayson, Spock’s mom as Jim knows her, and eyes the group serenely in the room.  “I will take care of the men,” she states boldly.

Archer balks.  “Why would you have jurisdiction over them?  Just because you are the elder of the Clan of Surak does not mean this is under your purview.”

She doesn’t exactly smile, but it’s a near enough thing that sends shivers down Jim’s spine, and he isn’t easily frightened by old Vulcan ladies who look more like a wrinkled bag of bones than anything else.  But this being frightens him to the very core of his being.  She is more than she appears to be, and Jim doesn’t like not knowing anymore.  Not after Nyota.

“It is exactly under my purview, nobleman,” she draws a sword from her side, and faces the blade upwards so everyone can read the writing.  It says,  Kehkuh t’stehkuh.  Ca’xmo mnu.  Kwul-tor goh ma’toi zahalik, kup fayei Tevakg-kahk.  Kup Stania.

Jim is passable in Vulcan and can only make out a few words, but Spock mouths the translation out loud, in Standard, and Jim is good enough at reading lips that he understands.   Fourth of seven.  Master of blades.  I strike and  only death follows, because I am Death.  I am Stania.

He looks up at the old lady and knows that she taught his mother and Stania, and by the way Spock’s mom rests her hand on the sword at her side, just like Nyota that it hurts, she is another one of the Fourth’s students.  He remembers Nyota’s words from almost a month ago.   I am one of the Seven , she had said.   We govern the mercenaries and blades masters . 

“They’re yours,” he waves, knowing that even if the room disagrees, the two women before him will simply slaughter all the mercenaries anyway.

Archer disagrees, standing up and pointing a furious finger at Jim.  “You have no right, Kirk.  No  right !”

“Am I not your Lord Commander?” Jim asks.  The humans in the room have wide eyes at his dark tone.  The Vulcans watch him carefully.  But he doesn’t give a damn about any of that because all he wants to do is sit with Nyota and watch her sleep, but instead he is playing nice with the noblemen.  “Am I not a  Kirk ?”

“Yes,” Archer rushes out.  “But she is -”

Jim cuts him off.  “She is from the Council of Seven and this is there jurisdiction and not ours.  Let her deal with the dirty work instead of blooding our hands.”  He remembers Nyota’s words and cannot resist the jab.  “But, if I do remember correctly, your hands are already deep in dirty dealings.”

Archer flushes and sits, silent for the rest of the meeting much to Jim happiness.

Sarek finally speaks, “Wife.  Is there anything you need?”

Jim can see Spock eyeing his parents with curiosity and even a little suspicion.  He didn’t know either, Jim understands.  Apparently he isn’t the only child kept in the dark about his mother’s abilities with a blade.  

Amanda smiles demurely.  “I was T’Pau’s escort for the journey.  I think I shall go visit Lady Kirk for a cup of tea and a little time to catch up.”

Spock’s eyes swing to Jim, and he nods his head minutely.  Yes, his mother is one too.  No, he didn’t know until a few days ago.  And also no, he had no idea the world was this fucking small.  Spock blinks slowly, and Jim knows his friend understands.  They have been working together long enough that they can read each other’s minute movements.  

“I can spare your son for a minute,” Jim says.  “Spock please escort your mother to where mine currently is.” He doesn’t say, at the medic tents with Nyota, but the other being gets the idea and quietly leads her towards the door.  

Spock’s mom has an appreciative smile on her lips.  “You are just as she said,” she says quietly enough that only he and Spock hear when she passes by him to the exit.  “I can see why she accepted your families contract.”

Inclining his head, Jim says nothing.  The old Vulcan lady sheaths her sword and leaves while the room takes a minute to breath in deeply.  “The women around here are fucking scary,” someone mutters.

Thinking of Nyota, his mother, Amanda, and the Vulcan, Jim has to agree with that assessment.  Majorly fucking scary.

  


  


  


  


  


  
After it all settles, Jim has to announce that Nyota is alive.    He watches as she is heartily welcomed back into the Uhura fold.  Her mother clings to her, like Jim wants to cling to her, and Nyota withdraws into herself, soft and silent and he can’t help but wonder if this is all a mistake.  Because he knows they will all watch her warily, for signs of something of her past.  

The Uhura House is very crafty, and his family has spent many years carefully watching their political maneuverings.  And by giving them back Nyota, he may have given them the weapon with which they can destroy his,

He gets especially worried when Nyota, clinging to the long sleeves that hide the tattoos she once proudly displayed, says, “I cannot speak of it” to everyone she know, even Bones, who can spare the time Jim doesn’t have to be by her side.

People whisper, rumors fly, but none of them are near to the truth.  People think she was captured by Nero and tortured,  that’s why the poor dear wears the long sleeves, you see ?  Others say she was hidden away by him because he loves her and didn’t want her to be a target after her near death experience ten years previous.

Jim wants to call them out on the lies, make them be silent, but he knows that will only fuel them more, so he keeps his mouth shut and finishes treaties and makes sure that everything settles after the war.

He doesn’t get to speak to her until nearly three weeks after the last time, where she practically asked for him to kill her.

It’s the first time Jim can sneak away from Rand, who always blocks the exits when she comes in with mountains upon mountains of paperwork.  Ditching the royal robes for something simple and black, he takes to strolling through the forest on the edge of the village, just near the walls.  He knows he needs to work up the courage to talk to Nyota, but Jim’s never been very courageous when it comes to her.

After all, she was the one who stumbled onto him and Bones playing with wooden swords when they were six and ten, and Nyota had simply asked if she could play.  Jim, who had always been taught to respect girls, had asked why she wanted to play if it would get her dress muddy.  Nyota had simply jumped into a pool of dirty water, splattering what probably was a new dress, and asked if she could play now.

Thinking back, that was probably when he first started falling for her.

Jim smiles, remembers the way he’s always felt when she turns a genuine smile his way, holding her when her mother screamed denials about how she should be learning how to manage a house hold instead of holding a sword, screaming  NO as she ran off to her supposed death.  De remembers having spent ten years wondering what could have happened, would have happened, if he had taken the time to hold her hand, kiss her lips, and say,  I love you without her mistaking it for a comment a brother would make.

There is so much he regrets, but never her.  He wants to have to, to hold her, for the rest of his days, but Jim isn’t sure about how to go about making that a reality.  Goddess above, he loves her and will not loose her again.

“Hello,” a quiet voice says above him.

Jim has to shield his eyes as he looks upwards, but his face easily breaks into a smile when he figures out who it is.  

Nyota is perched on a tree limb, wearing more layers than she probably has in years.  The full regalia of the Uhura house for women is a kimono, and she wears it with eases, but there is something in her eyes, a slight panic, that gives her away.  “Hey,” he says back.

She stares at him for a moment, looking for something, which she apparently finds, because she asks, “Do you want to come up?”

Not saying anything, Jim simply climbs up the tree until he reaches the branch Nyota is on and claims the spot beside her.  “Hiding from your Mom?” he queries with a grin.

Her eyes slide past him, and between the leaves in the canopy.  “The world really,” she returns shortly.  

Jim watches her, the way her lips curl, the way she won’t look at him, and wonders if this was really the best idea.  To keep her locked up between the walls that surround them and Enterprise.  After all, Stania never did domesticated well, and Nyota’s been free for so many years that this has to be stifling.

“I had forgotten,” she murmurs.  “I had forgotten all their rules, and how they thought women were below them and the rules.  Maybe I hadn’t forgotten,.  Maybe I thought it would be better, because I would have people on my side, but I don’t and I have no one now, and Goddess, sometimes I just wish...”

Jim’s throat swells up, because he can finish that sentence.   ...I was dead.

He covers her hand with his.  “Hey, you have me?”

Nyota turns to him, her dark eyes sad.  “Do I?”

“Of course,” he returns.  “You’ve always had me.”

Her eyes move away again, but she doesn’t move her hand.  Instead her curls her fingers around his.  “Are you sure you want me around?”

“Goddess Nyota,” Jim breathes.  “I’ve always wanted you.  Don’t you get it?  I love you.  I’ve loved you since we first met, and I am such a coward and I am so frightened that you’ll leave again because you should be free and not selfishly tied to me or this village.  If you need to leave, you can go.  I will take care of everything.  But I love you.  And is the most selfish thing I will probably ever say to you.”

He watches as her head turns back to him, eyes wet and tentative smile.  “Really?” she says.  “Really?”

Jim meets her eyes.  “Yes.”

“Jim,” she says, joy curling around his name.  “Jim, Jim,  Jim .  You are such a dummy, you know that right?”

She pulls his hands up and kisses them, and Jim gets it.  She can’t say the words, because he is a royal, and she still doesn’t believe she is good enough, but the move says everything.  The way her lips press against his fingers, the way she looks at him from beneath her eye lashes.  It says everything she can’t.  And Jim gets it.

They lean on each other for a moment watching a few people move below them, before Jim whispers in her ear.  “You do know your student stole my guardian, so I am in the market for one.”

“Think an ex-mercenary will do?” 

“Yeah,” Jim says as he leans against her, watching the way her eyes light up.  “Yeah I think she would do just fine.”

Nyota will be perfect.  She always has been, and now, now she is his swordmistress, like it was always supposed to be.


End file.
